Actually having the ability to download podcasts over WiFi to an iDevice instead of downloading on a home PC via iTunes and syncing helps immensely by removing the ritual of the whole thing, and made regular listening easy because new episodes appeared when they were available.

I forget which version of iOS Apple offered a dedicated Podcast app and separated it from their regular music app, but it improved things greatly.

I heard that the team working on the podcasts app was one or two people.