'some "friends" have said get an iPod & copy all my 600+ CDs & get rid of the originals! NO.'

Quite right - but for a different reason! Here in the UK it is a copyright infringement to put CDs onto an iPod or other retrieval system and then dispose of the original copies.

In reality it is also a copyright infringement to rip your CDs to MP3, WMA or what have you, though it's unlikely that you would be prosecuted unless you were distributing the files.