Rooting The Bionic, ROMs, and other questions.

[CycoPuppet]

I have had my Bionic for a while now and have been thinking about rooting it. I finally got the ICS update but have been using GO Launcher too much to even notice it. Anyway, like I said, I want to root my phone. I am current on all updates. For some reason it's running at a tenth of it's memory tho not much is running that I can see. This leads me to believe there's things running in the background that I can not see. I am reluctant to get rid of all my apps, but I also don't want anything that's eating all my resources either. I kinda want to start new but kinda don't. I guess I just don't like letting go of anything.

I know this is selfish of me, but I am hoping that this thread will stay clean of others chiming in asking about their issues. I just don't want the thread to lose focus since this is about what I hope to get from my phone.

Ok, so here are my questions or favors to ask:

Since my phone is fully updated, do I need to do some other updated steps for rooting my phone or is rooting always the same no matter the build or version?

When I go to root my phone, I back up everything first and then I get it back, right?

I read somewhere that it's possible to brick the phone. What precautions should I take to avoid that?

Can I get all the benefits of a rooted phone without a ROM?

Are ROMs really that awesome that I should get one, or three?

I am interested in a ROM after some posts and pages I read. I was attracted to CM at first but so is everyone else probably at first. Does CM even work on the Bionic? And if it does, does everything work like the camera and Bluetooth?

As I said earlier, I use GO Launcher. One of the things I really like about it is the folders I can make in the App Drawer. Now CM is based off of ADW Launcher, but no options to make folders in the app drawer? Is it possible in any way if I choose CM as my main ROM?

Is CM overrated? Liberty and Eclipse look nice too. I also read a little, very little, about AOKP. Any suggestions? I want to get rid of a lot of extra processes and bloatware but I don't want to lose some of the apps pre-installed like Google Maps and Navigation, etc. Unless there are other, much better replacements that anyone knows of.

I know most of this is personal preference but I am hoping to find a comprehensive way at figuring out what's best for me.

I had more questions but I will wait and ask more as the thread continues.

Oh, I don't really need answers in step by step unless I ask. A simple link would suffice unless it's not covered anywhere.

Thanks for reading this, I hope I am not frustrating anyone as I am sure similar posts have been made.

 

[rtunstall]

I'd like to know the answers to your questions as well.