Ok so whats the real benefit of cloning your OS to SD for booting/running? IS the speed difference that huge since its not using the compressed rom image

My reasons for doing so were-
1. Increased size. I can create a partition far larger than the internal memory. Which allows me to install more apps, libraries with debug info, whatever...
2. Increased speed, depending on the MMC installed.
3. Increased device life. By using the external MMC, all my hacking only wears out the cards I've purchased. The Internal memory doesn't get jacked if I want to mess around with the OS repeatedly.
4. Fault Tolerance- If my mods break something, I can boot to flash. That alone makes booting to MMC worthwhile. I will admit that I hack a lot. So this factor might not be as important to some. The average user won't need to recover their OS from flash. But if you're hacking, boot from SD, just in case. You'll thank me later. I've been there...

Cheers,
Charles Werbick