Why can't I manually transfer podcasts onto ipod?

Question

I have an ipod classic, and I'm trying to move selected podcasts onto it by clicking and dragging.
It looks like it should work, but nothing goes onto my ipod. If I add the podcasts to a playlist and then add the playlist, then I can get the podcasts to move onto the ipod, but does anyone know why I can't do it the normal way?
I don't want to sync all my episodes as then I'll lose most of them because they're from another computer that died.

Answer 1

This seems very similar (if not identical) to my issue:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=725691&tstart=0
Has Apple removed the ability to manually select and delete individual Podcasts on your iPod via iTunes? And if so, why on earth would they do that? It can't be a "feature" can it?
I don't want to have to delete Podcast episodes from my harddrive/iTunes library simply to delete them from my iPod; I maintain a large library of Podcasts, and I like to manually move them to the iPod when I feel like listening to them in the car or whatever, and deleting them later (from the iPod only, not from iTunes).
I'm about ready to downgrade back to iTunes 6...