New computer & syncing multiple apple devices without erasing

We've just got a new family PC and have about 7 Apple devices we manage with iTunes, I've read the support forum and do I really have to trash every device and copy data to/from it again so sync works with the new PC?

This seems like madness if this is the process, 300+GB of data off the devices then 300+GB of data back + all the other hassle thats bound to show up with old versions of apps etc. Just to be able to plug them into a new PC & sync.....

Who does this method help?

Surely a better way would be for iTunes to prompt you with a question about which library you want to keep or merge? ie the direction of sync. The current way is going to be time consuming & messy to get to a point which should be very easy.

The iTunes development team really need to rethink this as you can just about suffer this process with one device, but generally when people have bought one Apple device they get more,

I'm not going to do the process that is recommended, instead I'll create a virtualised copy of the old PC and use that every time we want to manage one the devices.

I only wanted to put a family video onto one of the iPads.....