There are alot of benefits to hacking your phone. You can get rid of all the Sprint bloatware, have total control of your apps, enable yourself to have free mobile hot spot, the list goes on. I personally will never own another phone that cannot be hacked due to just these few things mentioned.
First thing, is to READ, there are a lot of helpful threads here and all over. Before you attempt to flash anything reread to ensure you know what needs to be done. If anything does go wrong there is plenty of support from the community and devs to help fix many of the problems you may run into. Have fun and welcome to the boards