Hmmm. After a steep learning curve with Android, I'm really starting to get into my San Fran now.
Don't see what's so awful about it in its vanilla (i.e. Orange) form, though. I ignore the apps I don't want, I've installed the ones I do, I've got it looking neat, and it does the job.
Why would I want to root it, really?
Things have changed since I rooted mine - the San Fran has since been officially upgraded from 2.1 to 2.2 which means a) it's quicker and you can install apps on the SD card , which can be up to 16 gb, as opposed to just on the phone which only has 512mb. At the time rooting it was the only way to do it.
I'm not on orange, so unlocking it was necessary, and removing the apps I didn't want was desirable. I recall being told that there was a whole load of stuff that would slow the phone down, but you could only get rid of if you wiped the phone and rooted it. I never stuck with the orange stuff to find out if that was actually the case...