It took hours and hours, mostly because of my own weakness in researching *every* option out there in order to pick the BEST options, plus I just can't follow instructions blindly, I love to understand what they all do;)  I ended up following most of what @Cyanogen has written in his EXCELLENT site http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ as it's most reliable for a n00b who needs his phone to work every day.

But the results are AMAZING.  It's better than when new, snappy and sharp, love the Hero keyboard, moving the apps to the SD card means for the FIRST TIME I can go hog-wild on installing everything I ever wanted, no limits!  Next steps are to install a modified launcher to handle organizing it all and maybe a theme, althoughCyanogen's default is dang good already.

Anyone with a #G1 should do this, pay someone money if you have to but it truly is like buying a new phone!