[HD2 Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting and Genera] kai_:
It might be an idea to either divide or at least state if the ROM you're reviewing is a Sense ROM or not.

Now I can't claim that these are the best builds out there, but I've been through a few NAND ones so far.

I first started off with JDMS (SDCard version), but then moved onto JDMS v1.6 NAND and upgraded through all incarnations of JDMS, finally moving onto Ultimate Droid 3.0 RC. JDMS has now been discontinued and Ultimate Droid has some issue with the XDA mods but can be found here: http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?p=11069464 (thread is locked for the time being though).

Despite being a beta, Ultimate Droid RC 3.0 (UDRC3) is actually very good. It is a non-sense build and is kind of like CyanogenMod on steroids, running the GingerBread core. Almost everything on it works and has a lot of little nice touches like customisable boot animations. I did sometimes have a few strange issues with it such as the odd data drop or force close. However, for a Release Candidate, it is very good and I'm looking forward to it having more work put into it. It is simple to install - there's no need to create any partitions on your SD card or anything like that. (The reason why it's not progressed much so far is because the dev is currently having his HD2 sorted out under warranty.) I have no hesitation in recommending this ROM for everyday use.

I decided to move on to another build since development on UDRC3 has stalled just to see what's out there. My main criteria for choosing a build is usually to check GPS is working and if there is decent battery drain. The latter condition is hard to assess properly without using the ROM itself, but sometimes user reports are good in this regard.

I stumbled across prj_build_v0.3.2 - the thing I liked about this build was the development philosophy behind it. The dev will only update the ROM once the things to be added are properly tested, therefore hopefully creating a more stable ROM. This is a Sense ROM (based on the Desire). It seems nice and I have little critisicsm to give it. The only thing is I personally don't like Sense builds and also I think that it seemed so 'old' compared to something like Ultimate Droid which I had been using before. It had a couple of old bugs in there like the unchangeable wallpaper bug and I didn't keep this ROM on for too long unfortunately. However, from what I saw, most things worked correctly.

I was going to try DL DesireZ rom but like nandoworm states, the install process looks too complicated. It doesn't help matters when the instructions given to install seem to be all over the place in the thread. Also, it requires partitioning your SDCard which I personally don't need as I only install around 15-20 apps at the very most and have never noticed a lack of RAM.

Then I moved onto PureGingerbread gpc_hd2_gingerbread_v1.3, which is on my phone right now. (http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=909096)

I'd have to say that in the short time I've been using it (about 2 days now), it's been very very good. Battery drain in particular seems to be excellent (as in very low drain), although it is stated that bluetooth will give you high drain (I personally don't use bluetooth). The one thing I noticed was that when I viewed BBC iPlayer on it through the website, the audio isn't in sync with the video. Also the build doesn't come with any video player at all. The dev for this build is having some issues with someone else and appears to not be updating this build on XDA at least which is a shame.

I'll probably move onto another ROM at somepoint, but if this thread is tl;dr...

The best ones I've tried so far are either:

JDMS either 1.6 or 1.7

Ultimate Droid RC 3.0

PureGingerbread v1.3