I'm trying Home++ out. It's better than I expected, may even keep using it. It does take forever to load after booting the phone, but after that it seems ok. We'll see after a day of using it what happens. I emailed the dev to see if he's considering SMS and Gmail, and offered to help out if he wasn't.
I tried Sweeter Home, too, and I think it's out. None of the built-in themes were even remotely usable and it looks like customizing a theme to my liking would be more effort than I'm willing to put in to it. If I can get 90% of the functionality of it in 5% of the time (which seems a totally reasonable estimate) it's just not worth it.
Edit: I also switched to Sholes from Bugless Beast a couple days ago. The differences are almost zero other than the SetCPU specifics, the auto-updater is a tad more convenient and I was able to get wifi tethering and the Pandora smoked glass widget working, which I was never able to do with BB.
Edit again: And why the hell does AllDroid not have timestamps for posts, and like 3 posts per page?
I've installed and uninstalled Home++ three times. Too many FC's and the phone lagged big time. I know some have not had these issues - perhaps I have an app or widget that can't get along with Home++.
I've also tried GDE - not for me.
I'm back to stock and eagerly awaiting 2.1. I think with a variety of widgets, I can get it about where I want it. If 2.1 falls short of expectations, I'll give SweeterHome a whirl.
Failing that, I'll root.
-- Would love to see that TAT replacement. If that releases, it's getting installed for at least a test drive.