Cyanogenmod 6 Custom ROM Eval: Part 3, Quibbles and Conclusions

Though the CyanogenMod 6.1 custom Android ROM has a lot of great features (detailed in Part 2), I did run into a few issues and found a few things lacking. Here's the list:

• When I first installed the ROM, I had occasional total lockups. The screen would turn white and I would have to take the battery out of the phone and restart it. This happened less frequently than the spontaneous reboots I had when using the original firmware, but still troubling. I did find a fix in this thread, and since installing the uncapped kernel this hasn’t been an issue.
• I had a few problems connecting to my work’s Outlook Exchange server. Sometimes, it would give me a ‘can’t connect’ error message. Other times, it would try to connect but not be able to and not give an error message -- the little animated refresh icon would just spin and spin. I never found a solution to this, but it didn’t happen very often to me anyway.
• Also email-related: Sense shows the time when emails were last refreshed. Because CM6 doesn’t have it, I probably end up manually refreshing my email more often to make sure I’m up to date.
• Some things like the music player, keyboard, and the camera)  aren’t as attractive (or don't seem to fit in as well with the overall aesthetics of the phone) as the Sense versions. Though album art works consistently for me now on the music player, it shows up as a little box on the screen -- in a jewel case.
• If you have the pattern screen lock set, you need to enter it to be able to change music on the player, dismiss notifications, and so on. I found a workaround: if you use a pin number rather than drawing a pattern, you can access the music buttons without having to enter it.
• CyanogenMod 6.1 comes with an old version of the Android Market. It was a little strange to update to a newer version of Android and end up with an older version of the Market. They both function the same way, though.
• GPS seems a bit more finicky. I seem to lose signal more often than I did with the stock ROM, but I’m not sure if this is an issue with CM6 or just bad luck.
• Voicemails come with a free text message. Due to the way Sprint handles voicemail, whenever I get a voice message I also get a text message notification. Though there are a number of solutions to this posted online, none of the ones I tried eliminated this slight annoyance.
• CM6 comes with fewer and less pleasant ringtone/notification sounds out of the box -- though it’s easy enough to add ones you like to the phone.
• I miss the Sense bookmarks widget (the pay version of LauncherPro has one that looks similar).
• The Gallery app is a bit slow because it's tied to my Picasa account, but as it is tied to my account, I see it as a mixed blessing.
• With Sense you can have a customized lockscreen that’s different than the background pic. That’s not an option with CM6.

Was it worth it?
Yes. Though it was a bit of work to set up, and despite the list above, I’m glad I made the switch. My phone is much more useful overall. One thing to note: CM6 is no longer being developed for the Hero. CM7, based on Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), is what CyanogenMod team is working on now.  Builds are available for the Hero, but when I last checked there wasn’t a lead developer yet focusing on that phone. Regardless, CyanogenMod 6.1 is definitely a step up from the stock 2.1 ROM.

So Should you do it?
If you have the time (it takes a few hours), the nerves required (it’s not that scary one you commit to doing it), and the desire to get more out of your phone, it’s well worth it. And as long as you back up your phone before installing the new ROM, you should be able to go back to the original firmware if necessary.