A Noob's Questions about 6.5

[tkjames]

Okay, I've read 50 bajillion threads about 6.5, stock and cooked. I'm still kinda new to all this, and would like to know the following:

- What's the big deal with 6.5 over 6.1?

- When it's finally released by Sprint, do we update via the phone itself or have to go to a Sprint store or what?

- When/If we update, do we lose all our current data, like with a hard/factory reset?

- If we have 6.1 data backed up using SPB Back-Up and need to restore once updating to 6.5, will a restore be possible since the roms will now be different?