Hey Force,
Saw your thread and thought I'd throw my .02 in here.
If you are coming from a Stock ROM, these days it's likely to be after the 1.47 OTA, you can obtain root but you will be on a non-rooted ROM with a rooted phone. This will cause headaches.
After you obtain root, regardless of the steps used you are 100% correct that users need to then update to a rooted ROM.
At least the rooted version of Stock.
That can be done with whitslacks ROM from xda (link below)
The other great thing about following the steps in that thread are the facts that you will have a clean upgrade to the latest radio and wimax.
For some reason updating the wimax alone has broken 4G for a lot of users.
Once you complete whitslacks steps you will be on a rooted 1.47 stock ROM.
You can enjoy that or then wipe and flash any other custom 1.47 ROM and take your new radio and wimax with you.
Hope that helps.
whitslacks 1.47 rooted Stock ROM with updated radio and wimax