[gcianc]

ok, i just installed MS3.5 after a few weeks of total frustration with VZW 6.1 and HTC's messy touch flo. manilla 2.5/sense looks no better and it's surely more clumsy and non-customizable.

quick impressions...

Mobile shell does EVERYTHING useful (except have media player page) touch flo (any version) does with ~97% of the visual appeal and 50% the swipes/clicks. much less frustrating. more useful things on the FRONT PAGE. 2 swipes to get at everything vs that silly sliding icon bar.

plus... memory use dropped from bootup (oggsync, launch manager, showcase & fingermenu...

64% RAM FREE stock verizon
46% RAM FREE with ram tweaks & touchflo3D (& couple of utils)
38% with Mobile Shell (& couple of utils)

No lag, runs great and is very customizable. If you could resize fonts smaller that would be great (i'm sure you can somehow but probably not by menu choices).

No ROM or HTC upgrade can correct a flawed Touch Flo/Sense/Whatever since it's pretty-but-half-baked interface dominates the phone with no ability to customize it.

Anyways it's worth a trial install, without question.