As described in my wish list, I recently ordered and received a Plextor M3 128GB SSD, which set me back $130 at the time of purchase. I finally got a chance to install it today, followed by a fresh installation of Windows 7 64-bit.
After installing the SSD, I upgraded the firmware from v1.01 to v1.05. I had to download the ISO file, burn it to CD, then restart the computer to begin the firmware update. It was fairly quick, easy and uneventful. Next came reinstalling Windows.
A clean install was a lot of work, simply because of the ridiculous amount of updates. I also used an upgrade disk, which required me to install Windows 7 a second time (on top of the first installation of Windows 7) so that it would accept the upgrade product key.
It took several hours of work, and the only program I installed was MSE, followed by the latest NVIDIA display driver. I went ahead and installed IE9, and so far I'm not having any issues with it. We'll see how it goes, although I don't plan to use it on a regular basis.
Next will come creating an image of all I've done. Afterward, I'll begin the painful process of reinstalling and customizing all my programs. Of course, that will include Firefox, as I'm not liking Internet Explorer in any flavor.
With the new SSD, my setup is nice and snappy. The Windows Experience Index "disk data transfer rate" jumped from 5.9 to 7.8. Although my system only supports SATA II, the difference in performance is quite noticeable.
FYI: I chose not to partition the SSD.