T-mobile G1 new phone setup

I've been working on getting my G1 up and running productively. Some notes on my experience:

• The contact syncing mechanism had a problem in which when I deleted 200 contacts from my gmail list, I could not get the G1 to also delete the contacts. I tried clearing the 'data' from the Contacts app (under settings->applications), but that didn't work. Ended up doing a factory reset of the phone and starting over.
  
• Visual voicemail would be great, but Phonefusion requires an SMS for each voicemail, and also it reroutes voicemail to its own server. :(
  
• Considered apps:
  
  
  
  • chompsms
    
  • missed call
    
  • any cut
    
  • astro (file manager)
    
  • toggle settings
    
  • quickpedia
    
  • chompsms
    
  
  
• Installed apps:
  
  • Xtremelabs Speedtest
    
  • Tetherbot (from here) - update: actually, I may go with this or this
    
  • t-mobile hotspot
    
  • sms popup
    
  • power manager