Looks new to me. It has a completely different case, smaller wheel, which is made by a Apple as oppsed to bought from Sysmantec, different hard drives, bigger screen, faster video processor, etc... I'd say that was new, in the same way the new BMW 5 series is a new car, just because it has the same badge...
As for the technology thing. Why would you release it all at once, when you can do it gradually and make shed loads more money, it's not just Apple doing it, every mobile phone manufacturer does it. Apparently Intel have the technology to make a 6Ghz processor, but they can't make it reliable, how do you know it wasn't the same for the iPod?