looking to replace ailing mp3 cd player....

Hi all. (I've been in the homebuilt systems forum asking about help building a computer, and I've finally ordered one. Now, I'm here to try to get help replacing a bad quality DAP.)

I currently have a Sony D-NE330 mp3 CD player that's been giving me lots of problems almost since I bought it.
Among them:
skips all over the place. Often not in the same place twice (confirmed by backing up and playing over the same spot again - it'll skip somewhere else or play ok), and also often while playing off buffered memory (confirmed by opening the player immediately after a skip, and the disc isn't spinning)
forward & reverse scan navigation don't work properly. It sometimes will only scan at 1.2x speed, or will scan at 15x speed, quite randomly. Also, when trying to scan backwards, it'll often advance forward like 20 seconds, then suddenly jump back a minute and a half! (my iRiver iFP-899 flash player works properly on the forward/reverse scan, and you can adjust the scan speed in a menu. Unfortunately, it's only 1GB, not expandable, and the headphone jack is broken.)

Despite encoding some of my music to 16kbps and putting it on 3 CDs, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the vast music library I would like to take with me.

So... I'm looking for something better to replace what I now have. For now, I'm willing to settle for an Archos 504 (due to my max $200 budget, and the ability to replace the 2.5" hard drive on it later so long as I don't get too new of a firmware from what I understand), but I'm willing to consider other units.
If I get a HDD player, it must have a user-replaceable HD.

If I get an MP3 CD player, requirements are (or preferences if specifically stated):
much better skip protection & navigation than the D-NE330 I'm replacing.
alphanumeric text display (multiline is preferred, but at least 14-20 characters wide in any case)
if per track run time or time countdown can be displayed, then VBR needs to display its times properly. On my old Sony D-NS921F (which was stolen) and on Winamp on my parents' computer (I've bought my own parts to make my own computer system as of a few minutes ago, but obviously it takes a few days to get it), for example, a 4 minute track might show up as being 25 minutes.
no 999-track-per-disc limit. I have a few MP3 CDs encoded at 16kbps, and they have almost 999 songs, and aren't full. (Also, that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of my library.)
built like a tank. examples include, but are not limited to, Sony Sports series and Panasonic Shockwave series.
a good quality AM/FM tuner would be nice, but isn't required. (would prefer not to have one with only an FM tuner or a poor quality tuner, though, but if everything else about the player is good I probably won't let it hinder me that much)

btw.. I have a huge music library, and would like to obtain quite a bit more. I think you would all gasp if you knew the amounts of storage I'm talking about... for example up to 700,000 hours of uncompressed studio-master quality high-speed (15,000fps) IMAX (10,240x7,680 pixels per frame, I guess) video with comparable quality sound.... but being more reasonable, I might be able to go with something a bit less, like enough to store about 2,000 full length (full 80-minute, not the 10-track 35-minute albums) CDs at a decent quality, like 160-192kbps downsampled to 32kHz cause I can't hear above 16kHz.
All of my music and videos, with the exception of maybe several dozen (no more than a few hundred) albums, is produced by people I know, and isn't distributed publicly. (This includes other things that ppl I know have produced that I haven't yet obtained copies of.)

Max budget for a HDD player is $200. Max budget for a CD player is $100. Considering that the one I now have cost $50 when new and is utter $#!+, I'm willing to pay more than $50 to avoid getting junk.

Also, I'd be willing to consider a portable DVD player, but not the laptop form factor - I prefer the CD form factor so it'll fit in my front pants pocket. Unfortunately the ones I've seen (for example Philips PET320 and Coby TF-DVD500) don't support playing MP3 tracks on DVD discs.) I could pay up to $125 or so for a DVD player.

Any suggestions? And feel free to ask for clarification on any points... it's 12:21am here right now, and I have this feeling that (considering I keep scrolling up, down, etc, to add/change things at various points in the post) that I must have mistyped something somewhere, or left you guys hanging, or insert_your_favorite_deity_here knows what...