MP3's onto my minidisc player for over a year now. At at less than 2 buck for 74 minutes of sound its a lot cheaper that a 64 meg flash card. You article and others on ZD site state that MP3 is the child of the internet and PC with digital downloading. I also digitally download to my MiniDisc player via the digital output of my sound card.
Most sound cards have a digital out.
Your articles nowhere mention this capability. Listen to both though your stero. I will tell you that the compression used by the Minidisc sounds much closer to the CD then then MP3 will at 64 to 128 kb ever will. Its amazing that a 74 minute CD can be compressed to a Minidisc, which is about 180 meg, and still retain such sound quality. MP3 needs to learn from Sony and Sharp on the science of sound compression.