How To Properly Use a Wall Charger?

[Iggy64]

This seems a trivial question, but I have been unable to find the answer in the manual or the forums.

I have a Video iPod, and have been running Rockbox for about six weeks.  What a gigantic improvement over the Apple firmware.  I did have one screen freeze-up, but eventually re-booted out of that.  Otherwise, excellent performance.  My thanks to all the developers.

My question:  How should my iPod behave when I plug it into a wall charger?  I just got my first wall charger, made by Sonnet.  I plug the USB adapter into the iPod and the Rockbox firmware automatically starts running.  Then, after the prescribed time, the screen blanks.  Periodically, though, I see the screen light back up, apparently on the first Rockbox screen (with the orange Rockbox splash across the top).  Then back to black.  A little while later, the cycle repeats.  

Is this normal?  What is the right way to plug a wall charger into the iPod?  Should the iPod be powered up or powered down before inserting the plug?  Once it starts charging, can it somehow be powered off?  Or will it just keep turning itself back on?  Doesn't this waste battery power?

Can I / should I listen to music while wall charging, if I so desire?

In general, how should the iPod function differently when plugged into a wall charger?

[LambdaCalculus]

Try clicking the Hold switch on, so it'll just stay in the original firmware while it charges.

[sersoft]

I use a chinese mp4 player's wall charger and I just go into usb mode (select+play) so it doesen't restart

is that OK?

[dreamlayers]

I generally turn on my Archos V2 recorder and then either charge via the adapter or hold F1 and plug in USB.  The device doesn't seem to try to turn off when idle.  If a device can't shut itself off while charging, why does it try?  Should that be considered a bug?

[Iggy64]

Thanks to all for your replies/suggestions.  I used some of the buzz words from your comments to do another search of these forums, and finally discovered the earlier threads that talked about the "endless reboots" and other problems associated with wall charging a Rockboxed iPod.  Even after reading 20 or so more threads, I'm still a bit confused.  I hope someone far more experienced with Rockbox will be patient enough to help me out one more time:

(a) What is the proper way to connect my iPod to my computer via USB, when I want to be able to copy files to the iPod?  Presumably, the computer is already powered up.  Should the iPod already be powered up?  Should I hold down "Menu" when inserting the USB plug?  What is the safest way to connect the iPod to the computer?  

(b) What is the proper way to disconnect my iPod from the computer?  Currently I just use the Windows "safely disconnect hardware" routine, without trying to powerdown the iPod.  Then I power down the iPod after disconnecting.

(c) What is currently the safest way to charge the iPod with a wall charger?  Some say use the "Hold" button to switch to Apple firmware, others say hold down "Menu" when plugging in the USB adapter cable, and I've seen a couple other ideas.  And then, what is the best way to disconnect?

(d) Does it make good sense to simply not use wall chargers at this point, until more-mature versions of the RB firmware address these issues?

(e) What setup/configuration settings (such as the deep sleep setting) are important to preventing problems (overheating, constant rebooting, etc.) during charging?

I know there has been much written about all this in the forums.  But the various threads were written in various time periods, concerning different builds, and show a variety of opinions.  I'm just trying to learn the current state-of-the-art best practice for connecting and disconnecting the iPod.