Does a Hero need to be flashed with the Sprint rom during activation?
 

I just purchased a Hero off a member of this site and am waiting for delivery of it. My most recent phone was a HTC Touch Pro 2 and I noticed that when activating the phone, if it didn't have the stock Sprint rom on it, the data services wouldn't work. I would have to reinstall the stock Sprint rom, activate the phone, then flash the custom rom onto it.

Does the same apply to the Hero and comparable Android devices?