You know, I'm getting too old to play this game. Finally broke down and did the hard reset last night. What a pain in the patootie re-downloading my apps, getting all my little customizations, shortcuts, widgets all back in place. Maybe it gives the gang that drools over the nightly mods something new to do, but I can do without it.
Why can't Google develop an optional upgrade tool that takes a snapshot of your current setup, saves it to some designated storage area, upgrades the OS, hard resets, then downloads all your apps, and restores your UI just the way it was. Then the only thing left to do is sign back in to all your password sites.
Now lets see if I can remember how to make a shortcut with AnyCut...sigh...aging is not pretty.