iPhone syncing woes - reinstalled OS X, iTunes wants to replace content

After performing a clean install of Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro (gods know it needed it), iTunes refuses to sync with my iPhone 3GS, saying that it must replace all apps, music, etc, before it will allow me to transfer content to the phone.

I've known this is how Apple's piracy prevention methods work for quite some time, but I totally forgot about them when I reinstalled Snow Leopard. Is there ANY way to tie my iPhone to this new installation of OS X? Having to lose ALL my savegames, and having to sit through loading the phone with all my music (a process which takes approximately 10 hours, what with 3000 songs being converted to 128 kpbs AAC at a frustratingly slow pace) is not a viable solution.

For all my love for Apple in general, and the iPhone in particular, I will never understand from where they got the idea that all saved app content must be deleted upon removing an app, and without offering us ANY way to access and back up content, unless the app itself has an export function. Most, if not all, production apps allow this, of course, but games very rarely do. That's 100 of hours worth of savegames lost forever, unless there is another solution.

Any ideas?