So I've had my G1 for a month now. It has been with me across the country and back now. So now I've had plenty of time to get used to and figure it out a bit more.

While in Washington DC with the phone I had intermittent data connection problems making the maps app and anything else like email that used the data connection entirely useless. Though when it was working it was quite snappy. The phone really does shine when its on a 3g market (no 3g at home yet).

That said battery life is still my biggest complaint. Though it is rumored that t-mobile will be sending out better batteries soon. Some of the other complaints like lacking the ability to save photos or content from an MMS message (without a 3rd party app) will be addressed in what is likely to be the next update, which might be coming as early January. The update should also allow stereo bluetooth headsets and video recording as well as a few other features.

As for only getting push email from gmail, I have setup my regular email to forward to gmail and setup gmail to send mail as my primary account. Which works but not ideal at least for me but I may change my mind.