Thinking out loud je, I where got sifu

Ah yea. Not just cutomizing your homescreens. If you wanna root and all, there's a whole lot more. You can customize more than just looks, if you see some of our discussions previously, we customize kernels and a forumer here (sifu sebenar came out with custom tweaks as well, which basically customizes the very core of your phone (CPU governers, etc)

If not managed properly, in the sense Android is rather open. So individual manufacturers add stuff, then there's all sorts of apps in the market, and if not programmed properly may run in the background etc. So yeah, in a way rooting and flashing stuff helps manage these. You can of course "manage" without rooting too. Guess I'm trying to say open-sourceness of Android can be a double edged sword. So if someone just goes happy clicking on everything in market, it could backfire. e.g: battery drain from poorly programmed apps, etc

Yeah definitely less stuff on the G version. If your primary purpose is to mess around with it, would suggest hunting a non G version instead. Either AP or second hand SME warranty.

TB is a root app, you can't use it without root.

Alternative is using MyBackup (Pro), but that one doesn't backup app data, just the apk of the app for easy batch reinstall.
But it does allow for backup of other data like sms/mms/etc