Joseph I've struggled with the idea of jailbreaking my iphone to use the themes and customize my desktop but for all of those reasons you mentioned I don't. It is just too much of a hassle right now and I'm betting that the third party apps will allow me to customize after they are available.
Eric if you posted your iphone questions on the Apple/Mac board I bet you would get some very good answers. I asked if I should even buy an iphone there and got plenty of good advice!
I have never had a cell phone until recently, January 29th to be exact, and I chose an iphone. I am thrilled with it! I love the touch screen features and I have to say that it is very tough. I dropped it from chest high (not on purpose) and it landed face down on the very hard cement floor...