I have seen many of these posts. I am rooted, done many ROM changes (sholes and BB ROMS) SPRecoveries, Blah, Blah Blah. Your apps are save to your google account, when you log in to google they will appear when you select the soft menu key then download key....BTW you HAVE to sign up with your google acct to even access the market...
I am having problems with my MOTO DROID. Tech support had me do a factory reset. When I got it back up, I still had about 10 of my apps. An hour later, all 65 apps had been restored, and I didn't do a thing. The only thing that happened was that 90% of the settings that I had changed had defaulted.
I am hopeing that a similar thing happens when they replace my DROID because the reset didn't fix it.