I've been trying a few different roms since the CNA project is now officially dead (for now at least). What I'm finding is interesting. People are writing everywhere that this rom is better or that rom is better and whatevernamed rom is faster than anything else and smoother etc.
In trying out the various roms that I've tested I've found that they are all pretty fast and any differences would really need to be tested via some objective type of benchmark testing and we all know that benchmards can be fudged. So, it comes down to what we like and are used to. I liked CNA and I knew were "things" were when I wanted to make changes in the look, feel or operation of the rom. The main problem I'm having with testing other roms is that each time I put a new rom on my phone I spend way too much time just trying to find where the settings are located.
In reality, it does seem that most roms are made equal, the differences are in the details/settings etc. I hated a pink unicorn flash and seeing that every time I went into the settings. Was that a deal breaker, possibly, was it really critical - no. That was just me hating pink unicorns, but overall a nice rom.
Then there is bamf, which I'm running right now. The usual EGO flash screen with their name all over it and some music which I immediately turned off. Nice rom, runs smoothly and quickly. Same issue as before, finding the setup locations and getting the phone setup the way I want. Once it's done it is just about the same as the others I've tried.
I guess what I would like is a plain rom that runs smoothly and quickly, has some settings to apply some personalization to the phone but who's authors don't feel the need to embed their egos into it. Sometimes, the issue isn't the rom itself, it's all the outrageous crap and garbage that is added to it with names, music, flashing pink stuff that doesn't add to me sense of manliness etc.
It sure would have been nice if Samsung/Google had just gotten this all right right from the get go, no need to flash custom roms, no need to root, no need to upgrade the garbage radios that came on this phone. It's been just a hair under five months since this phone came out, what happened to "its a developer phone, fast upgrades right from Google"? More like, no upgrades from Google!
I like the phone and I usually do root my phones and rom them to make them work the way I like them to work. But we should not HAVE to work this hard and do this much to a phone just to make it work at all.