Good point gonk. I chose flac for some of the reasons you stated, AAC not widely supported. Also while I have an iPod and have used iTunes, I'm not a fan.
Just to give a clear picture why I chose flac:
- Mediamonkey, winamp, squeezebox all support it
- the codec is opensource, improvements are still being made
- The tools are improving, and getting more plentiful. I use EAC to rip my CDs with an Autoflac plugin.
- No loss in quality of the data
- more an more devices are supporting it
- You can convert back to a wav or any other format without degredation of the original.
- with cue sheets you can reburn a true copy of the orginal CD

Most of all, it save up to 40% space while preserving the quality of the music.