TP to a Pre shortly, few questions

[asgard_thor]

Background
Well, after a long battle with my TP, my current repair center had enough, and I've heard of the memo to get it replaced with a TP2, but my repair center wouldn't but finally, after my 7th keyboard failing, they decided to give the go ahead for the Palm Pre,(should be here wednesday) I'm up for a upgrade in December, so if I like this, it will defiantly save me some money, weither I want to get a TP2, but I do leave for Basic/AIT in January..so yah ,lol

1.
Well, I have been browing this forum and came across the whole updownupdown and doing the Quick install for WebOS,(Speaking of that do you just type it?)

2.
I have pretty good hands, so I'm hoping I adjust to the Pre with ease, also, I am a pretty big texter, and I dont use custom roms, just the "Sprint clean up" made by the guy on this forum, i liked that it got rid of the annoying "text sent" and u had to hit dismiss every time, if it has this, can you get rid of it?, also does the Pre have Threaded texting similiar to the TP?

I was reading about the gmail and contact switching and such, I have alot of B-day's saved in my contacts, and note's and such, I still have my TP,and whenever Sprint transfer them, I have to need up doing it again so the "information" shows up

I was hoping someone could explain what I could do so I could transfer my contacts, if it doesn't work right when sprint does it