The click wheel was good, but it wasn't like consumers were confused by the alternatives. With PCs you could make the case that most consumers struggled to use windows at the time, but hand-held media players haven't had that problem since the 80s.
The problem with the alternatives wasn't that they were "confusing". They were just bad.
I remember trying to find a song on my Rio. It took forever. It was pointless. I came to the conclusion my best bet was to build Playlists, on my computer, and use those.
The iPod's interface made finding songs, artists, albums, etc effortless.
Just because an interface isn't confusing doesn't mean it's any good.
