IPod touch sync problem – play counts

Depends what calendar you're adding the events to. In the Calendar app, in the top left, there is a Calendars button which lists all the calendars on the phone. You should hopefully see your MobileMe calendars in there, labelled as such in their own section. The theory goes that you should see any events on MobileMe that you've added to the calendars listed under the MobileMe section of the screen.

I would guess you're adding the events on the iPod touch to the wrong calendar, but it could be there's a separate issue. You'll need to check what Calendar is selected on the Event screen when you're adding or editing the event.

The podcasts part of iTunes just manage those you have either subscribed to, or subscribed and unsubscribed but still have episodes. It looks like your issue is related to trying to manually manage these, which will let you add the files to your iPod, but iTunes really doesn't know about the structure behind them.

I would recommend having it manage them for you. In that case, you can also tell it to delete those (or keep those) you want after you listen.

For example, I have a couple of concerts from NPR on my iPod that I keep, but my other daily/weekly podcasts delete after they have been listened too.

I expect the reason you are seeing the difference between iTunes and the iPod is the way you are currently mixing the two methods.