> I'm as frustrated as the next guy that my Captivate is still running Eclair, but stuff like this doesn't really get us any closer to a solution.
Maybe you already know, but you can get an unofficial Froyo rom from xda-developers. And before people jump on me about how it won't work for their mom or next-door neighbor - this is just a tip for fellow HNers, in case they didn't know already.
I'm no expert on flashing ROMs but bit the bullet this weekend. Flashed the latest Cognition ROM (3.02) to my Captivate. It was easy to do (for users of HN) and is quite an improvement over stock. I'd recommend owners of Captivates look into it. Take the standard precautions, read up, make backups, etc.
You're right, the mods are all pretty disastrous IMO.
Also if you're worried about those leaked 'stock' roms, theyre just TAR files afaik, people on that forum regularly pull them apart and diff the binaries against those compiled from samsung's official source code which you can get here: http://opensource.samsung.com/reception/reception_main.do?me...
I'm not sure what you've read but you can have regular "stock" functionality (minus Sense, MotoBlur, TouchWiz in most cases) in a custom ROM. It's really up to whoever puts the ROM together what theme or differences it has. Some are good, some are bad.
In CyanogenMod's case, you can have the stock feel with more options.
Talking about Epic 4g specifically (which is a Galaxy S phone) - I updated to Sprint test release of 2.2 (DK28), converted to EXT4 from the absolutely horrific RFS and then updated to Quantum ROM. It is a lot better - lags gone, battery life improved a lot, and to your question - I also have the stock Epic UX with TouchWiz. If you want all the Sprint apps along with TW UX - There is another ROM that was recently updated - TrulyEpic 1.2.
But Samsung sucks - I am not going to buy anything they sell - even ignoring all of the rumors they have badly botched up by not updating to 2.2 for all of their US Galaxy phones for so long.
I have the Fission ROM for the Droid X and it looks completely stock. You can get certain parts from Gingerbread, such as the status bar and Launcher ( the Launcher app is basically the home screen ), or you can stick with the stock ones from Froyo.
I prefer the stock UI, which should be available for all phones. I don't have a Galaxy S phone, so I don't know if TouchWiz is available with any of the custom roms for them. Either way, that info should be on the xda-developers website.
I actually find Touchwiz to be a few steps above the default Android experience. The colors are nice...the icons are beautiful. My vanilla Droid 2 running Froyo looks dull comparison.
Maybe you already know, but you can get an unofficial Froyo rom from xda-developers. And before people jump on me about how it won't work for their mom or next-door neighbor - this is just a tip for fellow HNers, in case they didn't know already.