Changing my Apple ID and its associated email address

Question

For the past 6 years or so I have used the same Apple ID and email. It started out as an Aol account and is now my [email protected] as my Apple ID. I want to change my Apple ID and its associated email account to Gmail since that is what I use more often now. I see the option to change Email Address has next to it "This will be your new Apple ID", which is exactly what I want to do. I have two questions:
1) I will change the Email Address field to my Gmail address. Will this create any sort of confusion with the DRMed songs and videos I purchased in the past?
2) For posting on these discussion boards I have yet another Apple ID (created kind of by mistake, a long story). Is there any way I can merge the two?

Answer 1

I attempted to do the the same (similar) thing yesterday (Sept 2nd, 2010).
I wanted to change my current Apple ID used for iTunes Store (which was created years ago when I bought my wife an iPod) to be my Apple ID (created when I joined the Apple Developer program way before iTunes).
After changing the information and clicking the "Done" button, I received an error message that was positioned on the "Apple ID" box, which stated "this is not a valid email address". I assumed that the "email pattern filter" was erroneously attached to the Apple ID input box, so I contacted iTunes Store Customer Support.
*iTunes Store Customer Support response:*
+I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, since "<my.user.name>" is already an Apple ID it cannot be used for another iTunes account. At this point, it can only become it's own iTunes account.+
I'm posting my followup question below, in case anyone on the forum has these same questions or has any experience with actually doing what Apple proposed - create a new account to be used with an existing iTunes Library - and has any experiences they might wish to share.
*My followup question to iTunes Store Customer Support (waiting for reply):*
So, what are the implications of creating a new (second) iTunes account?
- Will I keep my same iTunes Library (i.e. Will all previous items be visible, when using the new account to purchase items)?
- How will this affect devices (iPhone, iPod) that are synched to the current iTunes Library?
So, I guess what I'm asking is; "How tightly coupled is the iTunes "account" information bound to the Library"?
I don't want to create a situation where:
- My iPhone and Apps gets wiped out when I sync because it sees a different "account name".
- My Library looks like I have "zero" items (Music/Videos/Playlist) because I've logged into iTunes with a different "account name"
I'm attempting to only change the iTunes Apple ID and email associated with the account for purchasing items through the iTunes Store. I want to preserve all other aspects of the current set up.
Is this possible?