[Galaxy Note 3 Original Android Development] nicholaschum:
As I said before, I would prefer a physical full firmware over ANY OTA upgrade. I will never upgrade an existing firmware with a newer firmware, this applies to computers as well. I will always do a full wipe when I get the new software, I will never install 7 over an XP installation. There was a reason why I recommended Odin method because the person who PM'd me today said that both his AP and CSC showed MJ1, but his CS showed MI5. That did not happen when I did it, and if you want to get what I have, there is no need to spam the forum in need of asking why this happened or that happened, just follow the systematic procedure then you're done.

You can obviously say that you're not changing firmware, but if everyone could just wipe their phones, it would make everyone's lives much easier, instead of debugging why this or that is not working. I gave a systematic process to what you should be doing, to have a flawless process. You don't need to justify that OTA updates are better than wiping your phone using Odin, because you probably just did the OTA, NO, I'm not here to deal with that kind of BS, I'm here to tell people that there is a very simple method that should be used universally if you want to guarantee the success of the RDLV process. There are many people with broken installs, but then once they do a wipe, it will be fine. Also there's no harm in reinstalling Stock onto your phone, you would feel more fresh, you can either follow my way or not, but I can tell you, my way is stated above, and it is working flawlessly since the get-go.

Being safe is by knowing what you're doing at stock level, and modifying from that point. You can't say you're safe if you have a full data or /sdcard partition that could interfere with RDLV's process. To start from stock is what [MENTION=2348906]designgears[/MENTION] prefers everyone to do, and what better to start stock than to just flash a stock ROM which inevitably erases all the user's files and configurations, and also some corrupt system files that are invisible to an un-rooted person's eye.

Also, think about what you said. What do people do by rooting a stock ROM, and what do people do by jailbreaking an iOS firmware. They essentially just want to run at system level so they can do whatever they want. Rooting gives you more options, but if you want to stay within KNOX warranty, then you have a limit to what you can do (no kernel flashing, no OC'ing because that requires custom kernel, no custom ROM), so the difference between rooting and jailbreaking IS NOT BIG for the average or power user if you want to stay beyond the KNOX counter. Rooting gives you full control over the hardware, and jailbreaking doesn't really, but the point here is that they both essentially try to provide the same thing depending on what OS you are on. Unless you have custom recovery, then you can start talking about this comparison between iOS and Android, but leave that for another day.

An unnecessary step may take a bit longer, but for sure it'll be much better so you get full support from the community if anything messes up rather that to just do it, and see if it works.