[Captivate Android Development] littlewierdo:
Truth be told, the only OFFICIAL bootloaders we have are the i897 Froyo based.

Just about any rom (if you remove the bootloaders they usually come with) will work with any bootloaders you have on your phone (PLEASE DONT STOP READING HERE!!).

However, the bootloaders consist of TWO files, many roms only contain ONE of those files. Mismatching these (for example, using the i897 Froyo boot.bin with the i897 Gingerbread sbl.bin) will perma-brick the phone. As in, no way to get into download mode or the recovery menu. The phone will be a brick, unusable until you either send it in to Samsung for repairs OR spend $200 for a kit and take the phone apart, do some soldering and reflash the bootloaders.

There is NO PERFORMANCE improvements from using different bootloaders.

Again, NO PERFORMANCE improvements.

Oh, and did I mention, NO PERFORMANCE improvements.

The only two things that change from changing your bootloaders are:

1. The button combinations required to get the phone into download mode and recovery are different.

2. ALL roms will run on the i897 Gingerbread bootloaders (this means, 'if' you are going to flash different bootloaders, these should be what you use).

So, for #1, this is not a sufficient reason for me. I have CM on my phone, it is now being seriously supported (unlike a few months ago) and is only getting better. I cant imagine anyone wanting to use another rom outside of CM unless battery life is a huge concern, in this case, there are one or two roms that will slightly outperform CM. All of this is important because, the only reason I would need to get into download mode is to flash to stock, which I can do from within CM, in the recovery menu, or a jig. I can get into recovery from within the OS or Rom Manager.

I cant tell you the last time I had to manually push the buttons in order to get my phone to boot into one of these modes and 'if' I find myself needing to, I am more than capable of pushing the buttons to reflash CM.

As for #2, again, I am on CM. I cant see a reason to switch. For heavens sake, are there any features/capabilities are missing from CM that some other rom out there has? Again, the ONLY valid answer would be battery life and phone call recording (and phone call recording can be done with the purchase of a $1-$3 app).

Flashing bootloaders has a risk of perma-bricking the phone, NOT JUST DURING THE INITIAL PROCESS OF FLASHING THEM!! If you flash different bootloaders, then flash another rom (forgetting all the while to take the bootloaders out of that rom), congrats, you have a perma-brick.

If you mistakenly use the 3 click Odin instead of the 1 click Odin, voila, perma-brick. FYI, whenever I flash to stock, I use the 3 click with a modified stock rom because the 3 click both allows me to use a modified image AND REMOVE the bootloaders. This way, I dont risk a power outage causing the flash to fail (possibly) while it might be flashing the bootloaders at the time of the outage.

Chances are, if you still have questions, you should do some more research before you do anything. I have a post that describes the bootloaders and exactly how they work on the xda forums, please give that a read before you do anything.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=14835456&postcount=6144

Seriously, there is NOT enough gain / benefit to risk permabricking my phone either while initially flashing them OR because at some point I decide to go to stock and use the 3 click instead of the one click by mistake, or a different rom and forget to remove the bootloaders from the rom I am going to flash.

So, unless you have a SPECIFIC reason (if you flash back and forth between Froyo and GB roms for example) and can remember to remove the bootloaders from ANYTHING you flash, great.

I urge you, implore you, DONT flash different bootloaders because you think it might make you feel warm and squishy or because you think you might get a feature / performance benefit. It wont make a difference and in the long run, could bite you in the ass.

*Dammit! I wrote ANOTHER novel in a post I told myself would be short. Crapola, sorry again for the long post*