I had a similar experience. Did you ever resurrect your 3G iPod? Mine got fried... but I also dropped it on the pavement around the same time, so I'm not sure if it'll ever come back to life.

I was using Rockbox on my old Archos before iPods were so ubiquitous, and I liked it back then, but since my last go-round with the 3G I've been hesitant to install Rockbox on my 80Gb iPod.

From what I've read on this thread, it looks like maybe it's time to revisit the Rockbox.