Maybe I'm a little slow coming to the game, but I just discovered this when listening to Podcasts on my 1GB shuffle.
If I'm in the middle of a Podcast, and skip forward to a different podcast, the shuffle remembers where I was in the first one. When I skip back to that track, I pick up where I left off - NOT at the beginning of it!
So I can juggle a couple podcasts here and there, and it will keep a bookmark of where I left off. Makes it very convenient when listening to 15 minutes broadcasts.
I did notice that on my full sized iPod ... it appears Apple has come up with a way to bookmark mp3 fiiles ... very handy.
Also, if you look at some of the 'enhanced' Podcasts (such as Podfinder) ... you can see individual chapters and skip to them directly (and each chapter can have it's own artwork).
While I have been using iPodder for several months and have enjoyed podcasting for awhile ... iTunes just makes the process simpler than before.