What is the latest word on Xbox LIVE??

Up until recently, I've been able to resist subscribing to xbox live. I mean, I know there are features about online play that make gaming that much more fun. However, I usually have enough people and boxes at the house to enjoy some multiplayer mayhem.
But with November 9th quickly approaching, I am seriously considering going Live. Before doing so, I wanted to find out what the latest securities were on the Live networks. Are they detecting HDD size now? Are they checking file structures? Anything else I should know about?
I have a v1.4, Evox Dash, 120GB, X2.3b Lite+, xecutor bios 4983(?). Etc., etc.. I renamed my dash files, but can't remember what the default should be; original dash should be xboxdash, correct?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I tried xbconnect, but I have the smaller bandwidth package that can get as slow as 384kbps, so sometimes (actually, most of the time) its too laggy to play.