gingerbread is safe, the bricking has to do with the leaked radios, Cyanogenmod is safe to flash, as are a lot of the other froyo roms. http://androidforums.com/thunderbolt-all-things-root/355124-radio-question.html
check out the question i asked today, and the response from scotty. I ended up flashing a new radio, currently i would not use the GB radios, and there has been one brick reported with the MR2 radio, but it was not believed to be the same type of failure as the gingerbread radio. Pretty much all the roms onxda for sense are using an updated radio. I liked das BAMF 1.7 remixed that i tried today, and am flashing the original right now. Just make sure you read the instructions carefully, there is nothing wrong with any of the froyo sense based roms as of now. i would stay away from leaked radios though, that is just me.

 

Stay away from MR1. It causes reboots.

 

Best is a lot to ask. We all have different ideas of best.

I'm on Gingeritis and mr2 for the past day and quite happy. A dozen people who post after me will name another ROM, and I don't doubt their choice suits their need. It's a buffet right now, don't be afraid to taste anything. The bricks seem to be gathering around high o/c kernals, using mr1, or devs doing experiments. Just this week, GB is moving clearly into the safe zone.

Check the known issues lists in the rom dev threads on XDA, and try a few. No harm meant to any rom I omit, but the ones to look at are Das BAMF, The Perfect Storn, Gingeritis, Th3oryOfCandy, and CM7.

 

Oh and Virus has a Synergy beta going for the MR2. Virus is possibly the best Dev doing anything Rom wise for the Bolt. Droid Theory is another damn good one too.

 

No love for Adrynalyne, Butch and Team BAMF?? I'd put them ahead to be honest. NO ONE had been more influential with ROMs for the TB than them

 

None at all. I dont like their roms. Ive had nothing but issues with the things they didnt snatch from other roms.

 

while i was a big fan of virus when i ran it,i cant give him the same kudos as a tbolt developer. it took him forever to update from 1.12.605.6 to 1.12.605.9 and thats where hes stuck. hes got a gb rom out for the evo thats slick as snot.hes a great developer,but his prioritites dont seem to neccesarily be with the t bolt.

dont get me wrong,i like virus roms. rc1b3 was one of my alltime favorites,but i wont run a rom based on such old software. if hed bring us a senseless GB rom id be on it

what prollems have you had? i personally havent had any real issues with bamf rams,or chingy roms. IMO the bamf team and chingy are among the most devoted to our cause,as they are right on it when the leaks come out to always have their roms based on the most current software

my persoal hero is slayher for bringing us such a wonderfully working and functional cm7

droidth3ory is right up there as well,i tried his original th3oryOfGinger and it worked great,with the exception of occasional data signal loss. hes been working hard on it,as his thread has changed several times.

 

I'll second Team BAMF. They're the only roms I've run on my T-Bolt so far and have had no issues. Granted I might be biased since they are the ONLY ones.

I think "best" will just depend on who you're asking. If you read through the rom threads, you'll get an idea of issues that people are running into.

 

I have only used BAMF as well, they were the first on the list and I decided to start with them. I have been nothing but incredibly impressed by 1.7. However I haven't tried a new one yet, but I would say for your first ROM BAMF is very nice.

 

Virus' new ROM includes work from Chingy;-) Not sure if youve been folliowing his thread, but he had some issues with having a bolt to test on. His GF lost her bolt and he gave her his tester. That was the reason it took so long. I was bugging the living shit outta the guy trying to get him to update. Ziggy was one of his alpha testers.

Then again, it could just be my dislike for anything that the masses flock to. The masses are generally idiots. lol.