Sprint HTC Hero :: After Hard Reset Phone Working Well

I was having a bunch of issues with crashes, lag, bluetooth, and 100% awake time. And now they're gone. The only thing is - I don't know why. And my past experience with the hero is that issues you think are dealt with, sneak back in when you least expect it. I was experiencing issues even after I wiped my phone, then installed the official Sprint Rom (replacing the leak). Then I hard shut the phone down and was going to hard reset it again. But first, I swapped batteries. Then did a hard reset. Does anyone know if taking the battery out could have had any effect at all? I don't want to start an old wives tale about the phone if there's really no technical reason this should have done anything.

Whatever the case, I've re-installed all the apps I was using before. I've run every single program I could to see if there were any that would crash - and so far nothing has. I had WiFi and mobile network turned out, my bluetooth connected and was using Google Maps without any problems. I have yet to experience the landscape keyboard lag that everyone else is talking about. The phone can still be a bit sluggish here and there - it seems especially when I have my bluetooth headset connected, the phone can take a couple of seconds to make a call when I push on an picture in the "people" widget. But honestly - that seems to be the only complaint I have and I've been pushing the phone really hard trying to replicate old problems or find new ones.