You may have gotten a bad unit with your N1 as far as why you didn't like it. If your unit was a good one, you may just have not given it enough time to get used to it. I've found that when I switch platforms, I need to give the new device at least a week as my primary phone before I decide for/against it. You have to give yourself time to adjust, because you build a familiarity with anything that you use for a while, and anything that's different from that seems "not quite as good" usually, at first at least. When I went from blackberry to my first iPhone, I hated the iPhone simply because it was different and I wasn't as proficient with it. Once I adapted to the keyboard and different entry method, I saw it's advantages over blackberry. I couldn't type a lick on the first iPhone that I used. And I hated trying to change settings, because I knew where everything already was in my old blackberry. I just think that people need to give new platforms a true try out period when/if they make an attempt to change to them.
As far as programs on my rooted N1, I use SetCPU for CPU throttling and battery conservation, and love the trackball color notification for my alerts. It's amazing how nice it is not to have to wake the device and unlock it just to know what notifications I have waiting. As far as other apps/tweaks/programs, the things I like the most are the things that are already built into the "cooked" ROM itself. The himem kernel that allows for all the 512mb of RAM to be used, and the graphical processing enhancements that are coded in as well. These things, to me, really make the N1 shine. And I'm still playing with some other battery conservation apps, but I really don't need them now with the current tweaks that I'm already running. But tinkering is fun. And I have the Seidio 3200ma battery arriving tomorrow, so I'll be able to run everything at "full throttle" if I choose to without worrying about battery life, so that will be really fun.
