I began my journey--my long journey--to iPhone 2.
After some research, it appeared that many people had a problem connecting to Apple's servers and a few people even had the problem I had. One suggestion was to create a new network Location in System Preferences, because (so the speculation went) your current configuration was looking in the wrong place for Apple's servers. It sounded like some kind of DNS problem, or perhaps a default configuration file that had the wrong domain name or IP address in it.
So, given that problem, I directly downloaded the 2.
It certainly took a long time to reinstall though, because I had to do a complete wipe and ittook a long while to transfer 7.
One application that I consider critical is 1Password. Although I installed it on my Mac a long time ago, I only bought it relatively recently. Now I am making full use of it, and the iPhone version is excellent. It wirelessly syncs your keychain in much the same way that iTunes permits remote control, by displaying a number on the iPhone which you type into a window belonging to the 1Password application. The 1Password developers have tips on sync problems on agilewebsolutions.
Another great app: Shazam. Just run it with some music playing (TV, radio, whatever) and it will listen for a few seconds, analyze it, and tell you what it is. midomi is another app like it. I don't know how they do it, but they seem like magic to me.
A peculiar thing recently happened to my iPhone, a week or so after I updated to 2.