Manually deleting podcasts -- unintuitive, or is it just me?

Question

I've got my iPod set up to manually synch d/l'd podcasts. However when I want to perminently delete an episode, the behavior seems a little inconsistent and unintuitive;
- If I go to...
Devices => [owner's]iPod => Podcasts
...and then highlight the device and selecte delete, the episode disappears temporarily but then magically re-appears after I re-synch. Huh?! Why on earth would that be the behavior? If I take the trouble to purposely delete it, it's because I want it GONE.
- If I go to the same location and un-check the checkbox next to the episode, absolutely nothing happens, even after I hit the synch button. What is this feature for anyway?
- Seems like the only way to perminently delete a single episode manually, is to uncheck the checkbox next to it in Library=>Podcasts then hit the synch button.
Maybe I'm just dense, but why does figuring this GUI out constantly feel like an exercise in trial-and-error?

Answer 1

It does take some getting used to for the quirks.
In this case, unchecking in iTunes is the way to go. As long as iPod is set to sync only checked items.
Manually managing podcasts is problematic at best. Most reliable is to set iPod and iTunes to keep all episodes then uncheck/check or delete files from iTunes to manage iPod contents.