Android firmware version 1.5 on a G1.

If you go to Google Reader, you get EXACTLY the same interface you get with Firefox on your desktop? And when you scroll to the bottom, does it dynamically load more items (like in firefox) or does it have a link that says "load more items"? And if you scroll to the bottom, does it have a settings link (instead of at the top, like in firefox), and if you click on it, does it have ALL of the Reader settings, or just the small number of settings that Mobile reader has?

Tethering isn't in the UI. It's deeper down. So while I have no doubt of your claim that it's on the Hero ROM, I doubt very much that it's in the Sense UI :-)

And it's not an Android issue per-se, as I said. It's a carrier issue. T-Mobile-USA has told Google not to allow tethering apps into the T-Mobile-USA version of the Android Market. And the regular/vanilla Android has some tethering apps (wifi based tethering), they're just banned from the market, and some of them require rooting the phone (something I'm not willing to do).

Which carrier are you on (and in which country)? If it's Rogers, they may not have blocked tethering features and apps from their version of the Android Market (Google very definitely has carrier specific versions of the Market).

And, back to the browser, the HTC version of Android (used in the Hero, but not on the G1) may have a different browser app.

I didn't say that it's bad, I said I haven't used it, so I can't go around saying whether it's good or bad compared to, say, using Maemo as a media player. Or compared to an iPhone, etc.