Playlists have disappeared from 30GB iPod

Hello All
I've been tearing my hair out for 2 days - Googling and searching these forums and I can't seem to find a problem quite like mine. If anyone can help, or point me in the right direction I would appreciate it!
I am running an iMac (17" C2D) with the most current iTunes (8.0.1) and Leopard (10.5.5) and a 30GB 5th Gen iPod.
I have several playlists in iTunes, sorted by genre, mood, etc. I have a LOT of video and TV shows, so all I sync is the Music and Playlists automatically, since the music will all fit. This has worked fine for 2+ years, and I haven't purchased anything from iTunes recently. Then one day I take my iPod to the gym and all of a sudden I have no playlists on the iPod! All of the music is still there - but there is NO organization.
I plug the iPod into the iMac (set up to automatically open iTunes and to automatically sync). No joy. I still have music on the iPod, but NO playlists. No playlists in the iPod, nor under the iPod entry in the Source menu in iTunes. Of note - the "default" smart playlists (such as "Music Videos" and "60s Music") are still there! None of the playlists that I have created (and been using for years) exist any more on this iPod.
I try choosing only to sync "selected playlists". No joy there - still no playlists on the iPod. I try just ONE small playlist just to make sure I'm not out of space - I'm not. I again choose "sync all music and playlists" and watch 30GB of music copy over to the iPod - without the playlists!
I do the "5 Rs" and reset and restore the iPod. Twice. No joy. Every time I restore the iPod I get to watch the music copy over - but no playlists appear!
I set up to "manually sync" and attempt to physically drag the playlist to the iPod. Nope. As soon as I let go of the mouse button, the dragged playlist simply springs back to its original place on the source menu.
I have repaired disk permissions and reset the iMac.
This behavior started after a "sneak" update from Software Update. Usually, SU pops open and notifies me of any updates - I select what I want, then I get the "you must restart..." message in order to install the updates. Well, this last time, the Software Update window never opened and I never got to see what was being updated. When I went to restart the iMac, all I got was the "press restart to install updates..." requester box (with no opportunity to see what was being installed), and silly me I restarted the iMac anyhow (stupid, I know...) trusting in my Apple Overlords (j/k!), and then all this mess started. I am guessing maybe it updated iTunes behind my back and that's what's giving me all of the problems.
Can anybody help?

And a quick follow-up (sorry!)
I found the menu item on the iPod
Settings -->Main Menu -->Playlists
and that doesn't have any effect either.
thanks in advance!
Richard

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