I figured out why the CyanogenMod ROM was freezing at boot screen, at least for me. There are two ROMs listed in ROM Manager. The one listed under free is for the Droid, Sapphire, Nexus One and Dream - big surprise, it freezes! The one listed under CyanogenMod Nightlies loaded just fine.
I haven't played with it too much. I like the feel of the stock OS, but I was surprised the performance wasn't better. Linpack and Quadrant both showed better scores even than the SkyRaider ROM, but it didn't feel like it performed better.
Steve in CT
Yeah I played around with both Cyanogen & Skyraider the other night for a couple hours. Both of the score in the lower to middle 40's on linpack, which the stock 2.1 ROM just scored 6-7. I still am not convinced that linpack is correctly adjusting for the JIT in 2.2 and is throwing the scores off. It was a bit faster on installing apps while still using the phone and running a live wallpaper. There was a HUGE difference there. However the general speed of the phone wasn't much faster. (Also apps won't be any faster unless they are wrote to take advantage of JIT.)
Overall I was happy with it, get me a working camera and it's on. With 2.2 eventually don't expect miracles and you will be satisfied.