From Dare to Droid

[leebperson]

Well, I don't know how to start off a thread so this Greetings will have to suffice! With my contract ended, I will be making the change from my old LG Dare to a Motorola Droid, quite a jump for myself. I was actually looking at the BB Storm II and wasn't impressed although I still almost purchased it. Then there came the Droid demo at the VZW store and I was caught into the madness, so to speak!

I had some questions regarding updating the user interface (I'm not that tech-oriented, but I try now and then). I see there are many apps like Home++/Open Home/GDE where one can replace/update their user interfaces. Although there were many polls/topics about these subjects already, they more or less answer which is the best out of all of them but not which is the best for certain people. I must recommend some topics like the one stickied about the 40 Tips & Tricks (I've been around investigating for a few days), meaning reasons to purchase these apps for this theme or for these reasons (like there are five different Twitter/Facebook/Wikipedia/etc apps and someone like I needs to know and is finding it difficult to search through ten-page topics that don't really answer our questions because we are so not tech-oriented...*sigh*).

My question is really for, without rooting my Droid and damaging its warranty, what apps should I purchase to update my Droid with a:
* UI Sense-like (as close to the real UI Sense as possible, since 2.1 update will apparently not have it) home (such as the Droid Eris)- Particularly like the flip clock with the weather & the bottom three functions for phone/contact/menu.
* Customizable icons (the picture of the icon)- Would like to have an iPhone-like icon or a uniform-style icon
* Not be locked into one wallpaper due to having a particular app/theme/whatever in place of my home- Would like to use a similar wallpaper to like the one for the MetaMorph app
* Apps on three home screens for calendar/Facebook/e-mail/messaging- Not the icons but like a display-item
* Would like to be able to have the app be able to work in landscape/portrait w/o the keyboard being used
* Overall wow-factor
* No lag/force closes

The freedom of this phone is overwhelming and I haven't even gotten it yet. So I would appreciate some help. I have looked for several days across these forums and others. It would seem that GDE is best for the UI Sense-part, but its icons cannot be customized, so I'd appreciate some help.