Try Custel's rom. It's what I use and I love it. Blazing fast and has many tweaks while removing alot of the crude that I didnt use.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=344974
Hard resetting isn't a big deal unless you have lots of apps, programs, etc installed with all your settings and have registry tweaks galore. I created a excel file listing the order of all programs, apps, registry entries, settings, etc and keep back ups of ALL my stuff on my SD card.
But once you get a good base (ie, Custel's) it's rare that you have to hard reset... and a hard reset at that point will bring any rom, stock or aftermarket, back to it's original state proprietary to the rom your using.