From what I can tell from the 2 recent upgrades, all sort of problems occurs: rootfs, reboot loop, themes, memory, asking to use NSU, operation failed etc. due to people having apps from evil repos and custom hacks/mods. The upgrade itself is never perfect for most of us.

Those with the N900, who wouldn't want to try out stuff from the evil repos?
Does Nokia expect us just to use the ~200 apps available? If yes then Nokia is mistaken.

We want to hack/mod our phones the way we want and this will surely cause an issue when upgrading firmware.

So perhaps spending ages to perfecting the upgrade process is a waste of time? ie needing to go to 2009.44 before we can upgrade to PR1.1

i had no problems with PR1.1.1 and I do run evil apps (needed to uninstall one them, but I package myself and its not in the repos yet...). I also play with custom kernels...

After updating mine to, it just went bezerk on me. It boots, tries to build the desktop 2 or 3 times, shuts down and starts all over again.

Ive updated using a PC with the software updater like it asked to me.
This pisses me of. Nokia can't provide us with a normal update?

Anyone any suggestions on how to fix my phone so I can use it again?

I haven't had any real problems, and only one hitch. Otherwise, I think its just the idiots having problems with their upgrades.

The "evil" repos are not preconfigured and it requires you to come to maemo.org to find out about them. Most users don't do this, so they're safe updating.
Those who add the "evil" repos need to take into account that stuff from there can bring you into situations where you sometimes need some Linux skills to get out. Reflashing is always the last resort if you don't manage to fix your system another way.

I have always been able to update OTA, but I agree that for PR 1.1.1 I had to uninstall a lot of "evil" stuff.

You need to reflash - hopefully just the main firmware, but possibly the eMMC as well.

We'll see what happens with 1.2.
1.0.1 went well for me, 1.1 failed, 1.1.1 went well.

I've done
twice

100% success rate. (PR1.1 gave cold sweat though when I ran out of rootfs middle of unpacking & configuring. resolved with reboot & apt-get -f install)

yes, I have extras-devel -stuff and some testing too installed.

"Is it now a standard procedure to flash when upgrading firmware?"

No

cool...

Now:
There will be no standard procedure for this?
I think it would be useful regardless of whether or not there are problems
with the upgrade. (I think it says to "clean upgrade "...)