I support your concept of new, independent podcast aggregator. I dearly wish iPodderX/Transistr was still supported and working. (that program does everything I want, except that it's slow and a bit buggy - an not Intel native on the Mac).

I personally find iTunes the best place for quickly browsing for new and popular podcasts. They make a lot of content available quickly without scrolling through lists of podcasts on web pages, etc.

I use a podcatcher that is still being updated. It is called myPodder and it integrates with it's own web site, www.podcastready.com. You can install the application on your PC, MAC or Linux (hooray), AND, (and this is the cool part for me) you can install it directly to your USB removable storage type MP3 player. This way you can use any net PC to get your podcasts since the application is on your device. I use the Creative MuVo V100 with 1GB memory. Be careful because some of these removeable storage devices don't allow you to change the file structure on the device. I had to return a Toshiba for this very reason.

Subscribe to your favorite podcasts on the web site & set up your options such as how many episodes to download. Launch the application on your MP3 player or desktop, and set the personal preferences, especially the directory to store the podcasts based on the needs of your device.

There are a few bugs, sometimes things dont work well and sometimes the indexes seem to get corrupted because podcast lists open under the wrong show on the device, but a quick reinstall fixes this. They could use some refinement, new features, and upgrades so maybe they are a potential investment or aquisition for you.

Love the show.