Well, I said fuck it and bought a new deck for my car.
This one:
http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Produ...larion&tp=5684
I installed it yesterday...but it didn't work. Apparently you had to hardwire the power cable into the fuse box (or the car battery). Since I didn't know the first thing on how to go about it, I got together with my friend tonight and together (using a stripped computer cord), extended the cable to the in-cabin fuse box. And...it works!
Integrated iPod controls and you can even browse through music folders if you just copy music in bulk on a USB media storage (thumb drive or the iPod). Very, very cool.