things have really changed since I've modded my Xbox back 6-8 months ago. Only thing we had to worry about was whether the Xbox was v1.0 or v1.1. The Matrix was the only solder-less solution and it sucked. Ended up sending my Xbox to someone here from AT to do the dirty work of soldering a $10 cheapmod on the Xbox for me.
Xbox has been running EXCELLENT ever since. It's awesome to upload divx, mp3s, whatever you want to it.....you can also use it as an external hdd (although a little big...) for transfering data to friends' house.