There really isn't any reason not to upgrade to the latest version as soon as you feel like it. You'll find that the only ansewer to a question about the 1.03 software is to upgrade to the lastest beta.

Personally, I'd hang out on this board a bit more and get the feeling about how everything works before i'd really delve into the hacks. It took me a few weeks before I really understood the difference between the player software, the kernel, and user space.

Matthew