Ipod sync - higher play count takes priority?

Ok, so I know there's been a whole host of iPod issues been going down recently. But this is mine :)

Basically this is the score: I used iTunes for a couple of years before i joined last.fm; so play counts on my iTunes were considerably higher than shown on my last.fm profile.

I then realized my hard drive was about to fail on me so I backed up my 18,000 tracks on to a portable and bought a new one, clean install of everything etc. However, when i used iTunes now, it wouldn't recognize my old library, all it would do was start a new library with my music so I now had no play counts or ratings. Bummer.

Then I started to look for alternatives to iTunes and came across songbird. Delightfully, someone has written this addon:

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/

..which is amazing! It downloads your last.fm play counts to your songbird - great. Thank you!!

Anyway, the crux of the matter is this: I have my old 5G iPod which has my original library on it with my higher play counts. If I sync it with iTunes, it will reduce all the play counts to zero as it lost my original library....so I've made sure that I don't!

I'm now looking for a way that I can sync my iPod with songbird and ensure that the versions of a track with the highest play count take priority.

Can anyone think of a way to do this? I've found that I can play tracks on my iPod through songbird and Appreciate my former library, but as yet no way to merge with my current one. Any assistance greatly appreciated!