I am happy with my phone, but with my wife getting a non-branded one I realise that it is sub-optimal.  It has all sorts of extra services that I probably don’t need and it starts pretty slowly.  I suspect that if I can get a standard HTC ROM on it, it might be better.

But this is a one-way path.  I could brick the phone or render it useless.  I’d need to set it up from scratch (it is the ultimate factory reset), but that is not too bad.  I need a gold card (created last night) though I am clueless at the moment as to what that is other than something that makes the phone appear to not belong to orange.

As I type I have clicked the button.  Hold on to your horses.  Could be expensive.

Later: FAILED, just like this one.

Maybe another day I will come back and try the steps from the androidforums – but they require the same goldcard 🙁