trust me, im a noob too, it might not seem like it, but i had no clue about anything to do with this phone, i didnt even know what linux was, but i did what you did (this is all in the last month) and read through posts, thought wow, and then said to my self ive gotta learn. then went onto "show off your mods" thread, and read every single page, including links to "how to gain root access" and "using winscp" then went on youtube and watched videos on "glossy buttons using gimp" and creating icons and then after learning gimp i set to work changing all icons and menus, it took ages because there are hundreds of things to change and most of the time you dont know what you are changing untill you try it, so there is a lot of phone restarting and finger crossing. but as long as you backup there is nothing to worry about

so from one noob to another just stick at it and read, and search, and also the guys in this community are amazin too, all the help you want from some real experts. good luck anyway.