Couple of Newbie Questions

[gentoowally]

Hi,

I recently picked up an HTC Diamond from Alltel, and I'm thinking of giving the Juicy ROM a try. I have done flash upgrades of official ROM on other phones, but never tried a cooked ROM. I have read throught the unlocking/locking/flashing guide and some of the other howto's, but I still have a couple of questions...

1) I see the terms SSPL and HardSPL mentioned a lot. What exactly do the terms mean? Do I need to worry about this to flash my phone with a cooked ROM?

2) If something goes bad and I brick my phone, is that it? Game over...permanently...or can you recover from a bricked phone by flashing it with another ROM?

3) If I flash my phone with a cooked ROM do I need to know/configure any carrier (mine is Alltel) service information to get voice/data working or should my service just work if all goes well? All the carrier info is held in the SIM which isn't affected by flasing a ROM...right???

Thx in advance,
Wally