Firewire bridges are not built alike

I've been juggling around external HD cases to address overheating problems with my drives and now I've had to resort to juggling again for a different reason: my newer Buffalo enclosure doesn't support "powered Firewire pass-thru", for lack of a better term.

Until last night my set up was:
PowerBook > external LaCie DVD > external Buffalo enclosure

This set up was fine when all I needed to do was hook up another HD, like my MacBook in Disk Mode, and all was good. But when I plugged my 3G iPod into the FW port, it wouldn't charge. Apparently it had something to do with the fact that the Buffalo drive only has one 6-pin connector. The other is a non-powered 4-pin port. The missing 2-pins in the chain breaks the power connection even when all of the drives in between are AC powered!

So I switched my 250HD from the Buffalo enclosure to my OWC enclosure, again, and am running it with the case cracked open to let it ventilate. I hope it doesn't over-heat in this configuration. What a pain in the ass!