Oh, please die.

No, Java isn't slow all the time but it does a lot of shit to help slow it down. Like using excessive amounts of memory on platforms that don't have a lot to begin with.

"Get a better phone" isn't a fix nor an excuse. If your implementation sucks so badly that it needs the constant cutting edge hardware, you're doing it wrong.

I still find it funny that Java ME was always the first choice for mobile application development solely because it used less memory than Java, so it ran on low-memory devices such as phones. I wonder how surprised they'll be when they find that natively compiled applications use even less memory.

From what I read, the G1's slow because the phone is limited by the account the normal user has, and by rooting it, getting admin rights, solves the problem. Now, how much good it does, I don't know. I never saw a G1 in the first place. But rooting has it's downsides, mostly the potetial screwing the new rights can do. For example, a wrong app given rights to can upload to the web your photos or your gps position, listen to calls and other not-really-desireable things. For those that tread the dark path of the root, caution is advised. Oh, and rooting voids the warranty, but once you undo it, nobody knows you did it.

Rooting basically installs the Superuser application and the su binary to the system partition on the Android device. It does nothing more than that. Therefore, rooting does not result in a performance increase. However, on both my G1 (and now my G2, which is even more awesome), I loaded CyanogenMod, which in my opinion makes the phone it runs on much faster (given all of the tweaks the team has made to the OS and to the kernel).

Also, rooting does not introduce any additional security risks, as all su requests go through the Superuser application, which the user must then approve or decline. It's not idiot-proof, but it gets the job done.