iTunes and mp3

I've been hearing a lot about iTunes recently so I decided to check it out. I have an mp3 player (not an iPod) so it was important to me to be able to download the music I buy in mp3 format. The iTunes download page had this statement:

“iTunes encodes high-quality MP3s as well as pristine AAC, all in a free application.“

Based on this I decided to give it a go. So I downloaded iTunes and purchased one song then I discovered that while iTunes player supports mp3, you cannot save songs you buy from iTunes.com as mp3 (I'm guessing because they have no way to enforce the usage license). I really like the iTune player's UI but the inability to save to mp3 is a showstopper for me. I do however understand that music vendors do need some format with digital rights management capabilities (e.g. WMA) so looks like mp3-only players are headed for obsolescence. Time to find out whether my mp3 player supports WMA then go buy music from some other online retailer.