Few Questions

[Solor]

Note: See the bottom for my "bumped" reply as answering that will help me get somewhere and may save you from answering this massive wall of text

Alright, I've got a few questions in terms of rooting and running custom ROM's and so forth. First off, I recently purchased my Motorola Dext, and this is the first 'Smartphone' I've ever purchased for myself before, so I've never had any experience with modifying any portion of my phone in the past.

Now, I understand that if you use the wrong ROM's, or wrong firmware, you can brick your phone and render it completely useless. Before I root mine and start looking into these other options, I want to make sure that I'm using the proper tools.

I read over TheDude's guide on rooting your phone here. Now I see the warning about how it doesn't work with firmware v1.3 or lower, so I think I'm safe here as when I go to my settings page and view the "phone status" page it shows "Firmware version 1.5". I know the Dext currently runs Android OS v1.5 (unfortunately), so I'm not sure if this is just referring to the OS version, or if I'm looking at the wrong information. With some other reading and communication with a few user's over at reddit, they've warned me to be sure that when I root my phone, I'm using the proper firmware for my radio band which is listed as "Baseband version - 76XXC-63805030-SDCBALUM", however looking at all the ROM's out there requiring Radio v1.3.18 or v1.4.8, etc. This doesn't make to much sense to me :/

Now, another thing that has been bugging me and kind of stopping me from proceeding, is the fact that my phone is well Canadian, and is through Bell Mobility. I know there are a lot of different versions between Canada and the States, and even within each country, there is still further variations for specific providers (T-Mobile, Rogers, Bell, Telus, etc.).

So with all that said, I'm going to list off some specific information on my phone so hopefully someone here can help me understand whether a lot of these ROM's and mod's are more universal then I really think, or if I truly do need to be very careful with what I flash my phone with.

My phone is a Motorola Dext w/ MotoBLUR (ofc)
Model Number - MB200
Hardware Version - SJUG5807AA
Firmware Version - 1.5
Baseband version - 76XXC-63805030-SDCBALUM
Kernel Version 2.6.27
Build Number E6380CP1_043.02

I know most of that info is probably not needed and essentially worthless, but I figure the more information you have, the less back and forth is needed between me and whoever replies

Now, assuming that the tutorial I linked above works fine for my phone, and I won't have any issues (loss of features, phone bricked, etc.) then my questions are as follows -

If I did root my phone, and install some ROM's and so forth, is there a way to backup my phone how it is right now? That is do a complete backup of the entire OS, apps, system state, etc. So if I needed to get my phone back to a pre-rooted state due to losing functionality, or bricking the phone, or any number of issues that may present itself. Is there a program or a method to do this? I imagine it should be possible as with computer's you can take an exact image of your HDD and re-image it whenever you like with no issues as long as the hardware doesn't change.

Now another reason I'm looking to root my phone and possibly install custom ROM's and such is more or less so I can upgrade my Droid from v1.5 to v2.2. I'm a bit disappointed in the fact that I'm sitting here at v1.5 and Motorola is still working on getting v2.1 going. I do enjoy the MotoBLUR features, but it's something I don't necessarily need, and I'm sure I can get any number of App's that give me some form of similar functionality. Essentially I'm interested if it's possible to have a clean install with no third party applications installed.

These are my two major questions, and beyond that, I'm just kind of interested in the ROM's. I admit I haven't taken a good look at ROM's in general. From my understanding, these are modified OS's? If someone could give me a bit of a rundown.

I apologize for the long post, and well I'm sure I probably come off as a moron, which in a sense I kind of am when it comes to the hardware/software components of a phone, heh.

Anyway's, I think that's everything for now, so any and all information is much appreciated.

Thanks!


Edit: Doublepost automerge thinger?

Seeing as I've got no responses here, I've got a bit of a simpler question.

As you know my phone is a Motorola Dext (Canadian version through Bell if it makes any difference). I know there are warnings that any Dext user's may lose 3g functionality according to this thread.

Ultimately, is there any other method of rooting my Dext phone without risking the loss of 3g or do I kind of have to gamble with a 50/50 chance? Also if I have to gamble, does the loss of 3g generally only happen to newer or older models? I kind of want to weigh my chances of it happening, and don't really like the 50/50 chance.