Podcast & Audiobook Playback Options on iPod Classic?

I recently got a new iPod Classic (7th Gen) as an anniversary gift, but I've been having trouble with how it handles Podcasts & Audiobooks - the iPod I used to have was a couple of generations older (I think 5th Gen?). Basically the two biggest issues I have are:

1. Podcasts - the older iPod used to play just a single episode, and then exit back to the main menu once the episode was over (unless I queued several episodes together in a playlist). The new iPods treat podcasts like an album, and continue playing the next track. This wouldn't be an issue, except that podcasts are sorted in newest -> oldest order, such that it will play Episode 13, then move on to the next track which is Episode 12, and I have to stop it, go back to the menu, and select Episode 14. Is there any way to get the order to sort ascending (changing it in iTunes didn't appear to affect the order on the iPod at all)? Or at least an option to play only one episode at a time and not automatically cycle through them?

2. Audiobooks - I classified my audiobooks into various genres such as "Classics", "Fantasy", "SciFi", etc. in iTunes, and on the old iPod, these genres would show up under Music->Genres in the iPod menu (alongside Rock, Pop, etc.). This appears to no longer be the case. Similarly, audiobook authors no longer appear in the list of Artists and audiobook titles no longer show under Albums. It appears the only way to access audiobooks now is through the

Music->Audiobooks menu? And unfortunately it appears as though the Audiobooks menu only lists individual track names, and not Artist or Album? To make matters worse, the track names are being sorted alphabetically and ignoring the Disc # & Track # metadata stored in iTunes. Is there any way to fix any of this?

Any help would be appreciated! I've poked around in the settings both on the iPod itself and in iTunes with the iPod connected, but I haven't found a way to correct any of these issues yet.