I've had the same problem of moving data to my Compacts and have tried a lot of the suggestions. Most worked but finally I found using an external SCSI CD drive was the best / simplest solution for me. It's fast, hassle-free and works well across different platforms (using at least System 7.1 on the destination side). I can burn CDs on pretty much any platform and use them with the Macs. All the software I have (so far!) ever needed fits on two CDs and even if I have to burn one it's not very expensive.

The CD drive was cheap (thanks rabindranath72) and I even found drivers for System 6 (haven't tried them yet though).