[Epic 4G General] dwallersv:
Thanks for the thanks, and thanks to Devin -- one of the devs on the project -- for a great answer.

At the risk of being interpreted as a jerk, we're still not quite there, and I'll take all the blame for not framing "the question" well.

First, why: There are lots of people who are not technically sophisticated at the level of those of us that can pick code apart, build kernels, etc. etc., and are basically simply lost in trying to figure out what this ROM is, that one, should they take the plunge and try it out, with some risk, etc.

With the stock-derived ROMs, this is easier, as the functionality, features, etc., have much in common with what they've already experienced with their stock phone. To use my favorite example, install an EB13 custom ROM, and what you've already experienced in terms of the video player is almost certain to still be there -- the optimized, accelerated, Samsung video player. It's a versatile good player, so almost everyone includes it.

Ditto for the whole settings infrastructure, the TW launcher (if you like that), etc. What we get mostly with custom ROMs is better kernels that improve performance and battery life, removal of bloatwear, a few popular third-party apps, etc. However, the basic feature-set and fundamental look-and-feel (again, settings is an example), are pretty much the same.

CM is an entirely different animal. I have no idea if things I really use alot and depend upon -- like, in my case, the video player -- will be there. Or work as well.

So, what is the question? Put simply (I hope), to dive deeper than the general descriptions, ubiquitous and easily found, to concrete, specific differences. Again, I offer the video player as an example. Nothing Devin (with all due respect -- and alot is due ;)) said above would give me the slightest inkling that, if I install CM, a lot of video I have on my phone will not be watchable, due to unoptimized decoding implementation, or simply be unplayable due to lack of container support. Streaming? Not sure if there is any video streaming solution on CM -- can't find anything about it. There's another specific, concrete item that I (and I'm sure others) would like to know about before making the move.

Is this helping understand the issue?

Leading edgers will try it, just to try it. There are a lot of people, though, knowing nothing about how it compares to what they have right now, will simply ignore it as some exotic thing that maybe is of interest only to paranoids that don't want to be controlled by "the man" (okay, I'm just poking fun with that one :D).

My hope was to start a thread, and have it build post by post, of specific, concrete -- not abstract generalizations -- examples of the differences between the Epic 4G specifically, and the more general CM. I was going to take the job of consolodating into the first post, to make it easy and useful for the community.

Devin's post is, in this context, kind of an "intro". "Here, in broad strokes, is what is different". Another post might be, here's a list of the Sprint bloatware that won't be there. I'll take a stab at that one, but will need some help. But that's not a complete picture, if my video example serves to make the point -- there's plenty of other differences too.

My thinking was that if these differences become less opaque, more specific, and therefore providing a comparative tool for people with their known experience, more people might be interested in trying the mod/ROM -- to the tribute of the devs.

If this is a pointless/annoying/tedious exercise, then by all means, never mind. Seemed like a good idea to me, but I've been having a devil of a time making myself understood about something that seems very clear to me.