Hey Mike,
I recently purchased a Pioneer DEH-P5100UB, and I love it. Pioneer has some funky controls, but once you get used to them you ask yourself "Why didn't they make radios like this in the first place?!" I previously had a Alpine CDE-7870 talk about old (I think they stopped using the CDE designation a few years ago!). It worked really good. But hideously under-powered for the rest of my equipment. I did a lot of researching prolly the same amount you are doing and I came to the conclusion that Alpine charges more money for the brand than anything else. Some Pioneer units that are equal or greater power are like $50 dollars cheaper. And so far my Pioneer rocks.
The Pioneer you have listed is a Bluetooth model, that adds like thirty dollars to the price tag. Pioneer has radios pretty tailored to certain areas, like for instance my model has UB which means USB connection. Its got a slot on the front and a plug in on the back of the unit. So if you want iPod connectivity UB is the way to go. Sadly my radio didn't come with a cable so I just plug in my own white cable Apple supplied with my iPod to the front of the unit. Works the same as the $34 dollar cable Pioneer sells.
Hope that helped in some way shape or form haha
