To the OP, if your friendly resident Apple freak isn't able to help you out, perhaps you could try asking over at the forums at macrumors.com. They might be able to help you out.
When I lost my collection, I still had most of it around on disc somewhere. That sucks if you deleted your only copy. But, as mouettus pointed out, this might be a good opportunity to refresh your library with some new stuff. Still sucks, though.