@swimmindude, apologies for busting in on such an already enlightened conversation…
Just becuase you heard from some guy at AT&T about alleged products means absolutely nothing. AT&T and Apple have a partnership over service for the iPhone. This, in and of itself is a secretive relationship. The CEO of AT&T was not shown the original iPhone until 2 weeks before it was shown to the general public. This goes to say that Apple shares virtually nothing with AT&T that they don’t have to.
Unless all iPods are to magically sprout GSM antennas, the CEO of AT&T, much less a sales clerk, would not know about it. Everything you have heard is nothing but hearsay.
When in doubt, just about everything you hear about Apple is hearsay. They have better friggin security than the Stassi!
Prices of all Apple products validate the other products’ pricing. Changing pricing would obsolete one or many of the current products. This is why prices remain where they are. As a side note, you may notice that when Apple updates one iPod, they update all of them. This keeps that balance in check.