The Hippo Gumstick IIRC has enough power for most things. Powered up my Radius DDM1, Sony MDR-EX300SL, Hippo Shroom EB and SoundMagic PL50 and PL30 pretty well. Has good bass and some colouration which gives it a bit more musicality without sounding too artificially enhanced. Also it sounds more dynamic.

The only Sansa I've ever compared it to was the Fuze+, which according to reviews sounds a little less fuller compared to a Clip+ (which is said to have a similar sound to the Clip Zip, according to a review I read at least). Comparing the Fuze+ and the Gumstick, the fun sounding one is the Gumstick. The warmer and more neutral (some would call it flat, incl. me) is the Fuze+. The Gumstick worked better with very warm IEMs like the Radius DDM, while the Fuze+ works well with analytical ones.

In terms of power both can drive IEMs pretty loud without cracking so no probs there. Practicality wise I'd say Sansas with the better UI and longer battery life wins. Both sound good, it's just a matter of preference.

Sansa Clip/+, Fuze/+, Zip seems to share a similar sound sig, although sounding a bit different here and there....that is if you can detect those difference.

Those UI bugs are minor from my experience and rarely happens. If, however I scroll really fast and select really quickly I do get stuff like wrong button response and lag. If you buy it from Jaben they have a great customer support for warranty, for when something really bad happens to the player (like it won't turn on for example). Oh and visibility under strong light, really is as bad as they say...just so you know. I never did mind that, always have my hands blocking the light away. 

Oh and I dunno if there are newer firmware for the Gumstick, but FLAC files that have a high compression level doesn't work well with it. They often don't play. If there is like a firmware revision recently that fixes this, then it's great.

right now with the CLAS and Fostex HP-P1, there really isn't a need for the iMod already.

May I know who can do this iMod?

I have iPod Video 30gb. Hope to find locally who can do this, less hassle for me.