I said I'd report on my experience with Copypod...

Copypod is available at:

http://www.copypod.net/

You can download it for free, but it only does 100 songs unless you buy it, for $20. If you need what it does, its worth it.

I was able to easily and successfully export all the songs and the playlists from my iPod into iTunes on a Windows machine.  The software is easy and intuitive, and you don't need any documentation; they have a "getting started" web page with a couple of easy-to-follow illustrated instructions.  After you've followed them (and waited for the songs to load onto the computer from the iPod; that took me about 100 minutes) you are basically a click away from repopulating iTunes.