Why does each iOS update detract from podcast functionality?

Question

I have a complaint about what I see as progressivly degrading behavior and functionality of podcast functionality over time.
When I got my first iPod Touch around 2008, podcast functionality was great.  It did exactly what I wanted.  I could make playlists, order them however I wanted, sync perfectly back and forth from my iPod Touch and iTunes on my Mac, and everything worked find.
It seems as if every iOS software update since then has either broken something about the way Podcast functionality worked, or it has removed functionality.
I'm primarily talking about how things work on my iPod Touch but the same complaint applies to my iPad (though I haven't used my iPad for playing podcasts recently).
After the latest update a few days ago, the functionality is such that it is no longer useful to me.  This is a major *subtraction* from the usefulness and appeal of the device to me.  I have been thinking that at the end of my current phone contract I would upgrade to an iPhone, replacing both my current Android phone and 4th gen iPod Touch, but now I'm not so sure.  Maybe I will, but this change in functionality I describe below is making it hard for me to feel positive about it.
Listening to news podcasts is a major (more than 50%) purpose of me having and using my iPod.  Breaking this is a serious problem.  From my point of view this a far worse problem than the Google Maps fiasco.
Here is how I *used* to use it, and how I still *want* to use it, but cannot:
I subscribe to various podcasts in iTunes.  Currently I'm getting about 8 or 10 podcasts from various news sources around the world.  (This works fine.)
In iTunes, I put the podcasts into a "smart playlist" that includes all of the unplayed episodes of the podcasts, *in chronological order*, *ordered by release date* (*not* download date). (This works fine.)
Sometimes I listen to the podcasts on my computer using iTunes. (This works fine.)
I plug in my iPod Touch to sync with iTunes. (Looks like it works but no longer does what I expect or what seems reasonable to me.)
I *want* to resume playing unplayed podcasts from exactly the same list that I was listening to on my computer, picking up from eactly where I left off. (This is completely broken.)
When I return from being in my car or out jogging or the end of my workday at the office listening to my iPod, I want to plug my iPod back into my computer, sync up the list, and resume playing on my computer from the same list from where I left off on the iPod.  (This seems somewhat broken.)
All of this used to work perfectly when I got my first iPod Touch back around 2008. (I don't recall the exact date but it was not long after the iPhone and iPod Touch were introduced.)  Almost every software update since then has either broken something about this, or explicitly removed some part of the functionality, making it more and more irritating to use over time.  I can't help but think "What the **** is wrong with Apple?"  There is so much stuff that the company does great, and it perplexes me how they can screw this up so badly, so continuously.
Here is my perception of the changes in behavior over time:
syncing back and forth between iTunes on my computer and the iPod Touch has grown increasingly buggy, with the software messing up more and more often in terms of both what stuff would be recognized as unplayed and also keeping track of the place where I left off.
the ordering of the playlist used to match the order in iTunes (which is exactly what I want) but over time it diverged more and more (which I don't want).
not long ago (I think around the time of the upgrade from iOS 5 to iOS 6), the podcast and music playlist features were made completely separate in the iPod touch -- but not in iTunes.  So in iTunes I have my perfectly functioning smart playlist but on my iPod Touch I have an empty playlist and the podcasts are played by a separate app.  At least there was the option to play "Unplayed Podcasts" (or some name like that) which was close enough.
the latest update from a few days ago got rid of this ability to play the unplayed podcasts.
As far as I am concerned this it totally unacceptable.  No, I am *not* going to stream over WiFi, because I'm not always in WiFi range, for example when I'm in my car.  And if I were to replace my iPod Touch with an iPhone, then also no, I am *not* going to stream everything over the air from the cloud because (a) I don't want to use up and overshoot my phone plan data allowance; (b) I don't want to have to pay extra to store stuff in the cloud; and (c) even if I did both of those things it still doesn't solve the problem of no longer being able to play from a playlist that includes podcasts from many sources.
I'm really upset with Apple over this, and I see ho hope of any satisfactory outcome.

Answer 1

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