Bootloader has given me nothing but problems... Not valid older than current blah blah blah
I flashed clockwork recovery and have not seen or needed bootloader since and it is great. You can flash radios kernals or full ROMs through it. You can go into recovery or into the app on the phone and tell it what ROM or radio to flash. It also has an option from the app to wipe before flashing a new ROM which is awesome! I have used it for full backups and switching to new ROMS and updating ROMs and Kernals without even a hint of an issue.
Once you get it installed select flash recovery and your golden. The really nice thing is the ease of managing backups from the app! If you try it and have problems or questions shoot me a PM and I would be happy to help!
Oh yeah and you can get it from the market for free they even let you turn the flippin adds off
(though leaving them on supports the devs)