Just a bit of encouragement here to those back and forth on rooting...I have rooted my G1, my sons, and my wifes, then when my screen cracked I rooted another for myself, my son wanted a iPhone so he traded his for one then about a week later wifi died on his iPhone and theres no way to get it back so he re-traded for another G1 which I rooted for him again. So 5 G1's rooted an 0 issues. Its not hard to do at all and total time (never timed it lol) seemed like 10 minutes or so.
I followed the how to root guide from XDA and went like a breeze. Was a little tricky at first trying to get telnet working but only cause the guide says to type it in before you download the app which isnt right, other then that no problems.