HTC EVO 4G :: Restoring Applications After Rooting And Flashing Fresh?

Last night I rooted my Evo (Android 2.1) using Unrevoked 3.21, then flashed the new Fresh ROM and radios. I encountered several "gotchas" that may help others doing the same thing.

1. I had to try the Unrevoked program four times before the root "took". The first three times I got the message "Unable to obtain root. This happens sometimes" message. I would actually like to know (at least at a high level) why it failed the first three times. I tried it on a Win XP laptop the first two times, then switched to a Windows Vista machine, then back to my XP machine when it finally worked.

2. After verifying that my rooted Android 2.1 was working ok, I decided to flash the new Fresh ROM. First, I did a Titanium backup of everything on the phone, that went fast (although the Titanium interface could be improved. You have to go into the menu and select Batch to do the actual backup). As a fail-safe, I tried to do a backup of apps + data using MyBackup Pro. Unfortunately, it kept hanging on the app backup, so I just did a data backup. I also did an Astro backup of the apps, and (of course) I also did a nandroid backup of the current ROM (thanks to the good advice on this forum).

3. I then did a factory reset and cache wipe of the phone, then went ahead and flashed the latest Fresh ROM and radios. Both went very smoothly, I checked the version of the ROM and baseband in the phone settings and they match. Unfortunately, restoring the apps and data did NOT go smoothly at all. First, I discovered that Titanium doesn't seem to work as advertised. It didn't back up all my apps (I have over 150, guess that's a lot, but still!). A good example was Folder Organizer. It didn't get backed up so I had to re-download it. Next, Titanium didn't restore any of my data, SMS, call logs, home screen settings, nada. Fortunately, the MyBackup Pro data backup had almost all of that stuff, so I was able to get most of it back. The Astro backup was pretty useless the app list is not sorted by name (it uses the "com" package name") so it's virtually impossible to find what you're looking for. Lesson learned: if you've heavily customized your home screens, maybe flashing ROM's is not for you. If there's a better way to restore apps and settings after flashing, let us know!

4. Finally (and I believe this is a known issue) the FriendStream widget and Facebook contact linking is not working with this ROM.
At least I'm rooted now. Wireless tether works, the ROM works as advertised (scrolling and transitions are noticeably smoother due to the frame rate mod). I haven't had a chance to test 4G, I've got it turned on and will test around town. If it doesn't work then I'll restore the nandroid backup and go back to stock.