I was able to get on WiFi and I ended up downloading the trial of MyBackup and it did a great job of backing up and restoring my apps and data.
The only side effect that I can see is that the installed programs no longer show up in the Market under My Downloads. This makes it difficult to see if the apps have updates.
After the update, my Dream is still running 1.5. I don't see any functional difference with the update installed. Voice Dialer is still there (I never use it). Wasn't I supposed to end up with 1.6? No SenseUI for Dream users?