ITunes working fine but it won't detect my ipod or upgrade firmware

Question

I have a PowerBook G4, running the latest version of osx 10.4 and a 60 gig, 5G ipod. I was prompted over the weekend to install the new quicktime and the new itunes which I did. Both are working fine. I have no problem listening to music or viewing movies or whatever.
Except, the ipod is not being detected by itunes 7.0. I checked the ipod itself and it has the 1.1.2 version of the ipod firmware. I have done everything I can think to do including the first 4 Rs (Reset your iPod, Retry with a different USB port, Restart your computer, Reinstall iPod and iTunes software). I am not willing to try "Restore your iPod" because if that does not work I will have a blank iPod and I am about to travel for a few days and I want to have music on it when I leave.
I suppose the problem might be something about getting my ipod's firmware updated to 1.2 so that it can then be detected but the 1.2 update can only be done through iTunes 7.0. Worse, there does not seem to be any button I can push to FORCE iTunes to update the ipod firmware. This seems very chicken-eggish.
I don't actually see many folks have THIS problem. The closest is people who can't do much with the iPod but can at least see it in "source" within iTunes. I don't even see a "source" list along the left-hand side of iTunes 7.0 (I just see LIBRARY, STORE and PLAYLISTS).
Any thoughts on how I might resolve this?
PS, I have two ipod cables and tried both and tried them on each of the two USB ports on my powerbook. That plus the fact that I have never had a problem with either the ports or the cables before leads me to believe this is not the problem.

Answer 1

After several weeks of not finding answers here or elsewhere on the web - and after waiting for an iTunes 7.0.1 and getting it - I "gave up" and went to the Apple Store last night.
The Genius bar took my ipod, plugged it in to a mac, reached under the counter and handed me what they said was a NEW ipod (it was in a generic brown box with no accessories, cables, etc). I did not like that solution for two reasons. First, all of my family photos and videos were on my iPod and I did not like the idea that maybe those photos would turn up on the web someday. Second, it was a gift and had a personalized engraving on the back. When I pressed them on what they thought was wrong with my iPod they said it was not worth the time to figure out and they would just give me another one. Or I could ship in to Apple Support and they would send me a new one WITH the same engraving in a couple of weeks. I took the "new" iPod.
And, sure enough, when I connected it to my powerbook it was detected, the firmware was updated and iTunes synced all my music, photos and videos (and games).
The Genius bar people seems pretty sure that the problem was hardware (the port where you connected the USB cable at the bottom of the device). When I pointed out that it had been working fine right up until the day I upgraded to iTunes 7.0 and that it had not worked since they did not seem terribly interested.
So, my problem is "solved" in that I have a working iPod sans engraving.