As far as I know it's the only way. Do you have something against iCloud?
I generally prefer local storage and syncing for two reasons.
Privacy and Security: Even with the best encryption, logic tells us that data will be safer and more private in one place than in two, especially when one of those places is much more known and accessible to the world.
Functionality: What if your Internet is down? Why should I have to depend on the Internet and Apple's online infrastructure to sync, when my computer and iPod are perfectly capable of doing so locally, without it? This is not just a hypothetical scenario, either. It wouldn't be the first time my Internet goes down or Apple's servers fail.
The more parts to a system, the more it is liable to fail. The less dependent we are on such systems, the more self-sufficient we are.
I think the iCloud is a great OPTION, but I'm not quite happy with it being the ONLY option for simple syncing.