I have owned pocket pcs for years and have never got an orange screen of death. Palm is fucking horrible, pocket pc is much better.
anyways, here is some good software
www.orb.com - the ability to turn your pocket pc into a tivo - stream and record live CABLE, DIGITAL CABLE, or SATELITE. You can also stream music, movies and photos from your pc. it's awesome and free.
spb pocket plus - gives you a great amount of options and changes yuour today screen, plus a wealth of other goodies, too much to mention
journalbar - auto-updating specialized news headlines on your today screen, also has weather, sports scores, etc.
great games:
snails
arvale (rpg)
age of empires (rts)
gilbert goodmate