[mindfrost82]

XDA is the place for GSM ROMs. Most chefs are already over there and most just want to support one site/thread instead of posting their ROMs on other sites.

As far as hardware, find out what 3G frequency your carrier is on. T-Mobile is different than ATT, so GCI might use one of those. If you don't have 3G, then it wouldn't really matter.

The unlocked european version has a front camera instead of the back. It has a different keyboard I believe (it has numbers across the top row). It has the non-glossy battery cover. Other than that I think they're pretty much the same.

As far as ROMs go, you need to HardSPL first, which is pretty easy, just MAKE SURE you follow all the steps closely. You can get SIM Unlocked if its locked, that way you can use any SIM. You don't necessarily need to be Security Unlocked, as far as I know that just allows you to install converted radios from other devices (like the Blackstone).

After that, flashing ROMs is just as easy as it is on CDMA versions.

Usually the data connection will set itself up once you put your SIM in. It'll prompt you with the network it found and you choose if you want it to configure it or not.

As far as ROMs go, if you look in the XDA ROM forum for the Raphael, any of the ones on the first page are usually the most popular ones. People reply in the threads all the time and I rarely see the most popular ones go off of the first page. There are plenty of WM6.5 ROMs if you want to try those, and some great WM6.1 ROMs. It all depends on what you want.