Sharing podcasts between users

I'm trying to figure out a way to share podcasts between two users on the same computer, so they only need to be downloaded once. My wife and I have very different musical tastes and separate ipods, so we want separate itunes libraries, separate ratings, separate play count, etc. But most of what we listen to is actually podcasts, and we mostly listen to the same ones. So it would be nice to download the podcasts only once to a shared directory. Seems like a sensible and legal think to do, but I can't figure out how.

My internet research has found two basic techniques:
1) share the entire library database including play counts and all, which would share play counts and all, and force the use of playlists to keep the ipod contents separate. Not what I want.
2) Keep separate library databases, but put the music folders in shared space. This means one user has to re-"add folder" every time a podcast is downloaded. You still duplicate files unless one user gives up on letting iTunes manage their music library. This is not ideal, but getting close, so I thought I would try something along those lines.

I moved my Podcasts directory to a shared directory and set up a symbolic link to it. The results were odd. Existing podcasts play just fine, but new Podcasts get downloaded to my personal iTunes folder, as if the podcast series was an album. And iTunes doesn't seem to be able to delete the old podcasts. I'm thoroughly confused.

I have a MacBook Air with Leopard 10.5.8 and iTunes 10.1.2.

Help?