If you don't want to follow the crowd you can look at reviews from
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/
Some of the players are really good with a few thing active noise cancellation as well. Samsung and sony do make some good players.
Just do your research a bit.
I used to have a Samsung YP-P3 and I loved it, inherited an Ipod Touch for a little while before jumping to use my Samsung Galaxy S for my MP3s. With smart phones getting more and more tractions, you should see more functionality integration over the next few years. MP3 players will eventually die out when your phone does pretty much everything that the player ever will. I'm with you and the whole not wanting to go with the Apple crowd, Apples policies on what I can do with my own device have always been far too restrictive for my tastes. I've had friends that highly recommended the higher end sony players... active noise cancellation is great on long haul flights.
If you still want you can use iTunes and sync with Android based phones and soon PMPs. There are apps for that.