Having said that, my next two assumptions about the locker arrangement, which involve an obvious trade-off:

a. I will be able to locally store a certain amount of songs/media on the ipad/ipod itself, but
b. To get access to my locker, I need to be connected via wi-fi.

So, for example, in my car I can listen to stuff I’ve synced to my device; but in my home (or wherever I can get wi-fi service), I can hear anything from my full music collection.

Yes?

It sounds screwy, but don’t forget that the storage isn’t pure profit for Apple. In fact, it’s one of the iPhone’s most expensive components ($27 for 16 GB, according to iSuppli). As the demand for data grows, Apple can push people online instead of putting bigger and more expensive flash drives on its devices.

This would basically permit me to buy the ipod/ipad/ with the LEAST amount of storage, since my music collection would reside in this “locker”?

So instead of spending $100, $200, etc., more on the device at the time of purchase, they’d prefer that I spend $20 a year to have a locker?…