2T vs 1T has been discussed to no end and the general ruling is that the difference is quite minimal and most people will never notice. We're talking 1-5 fps in games and only a tiny drop in synthetic benchmarks.
I'd say don't worry about going with 4 sticks if you already have 2 512s. If you're starting from scratch, you definatley want to go with 2x1GB sticks, but many people like me have thrown in a second pair of 512s to go to 2GB with no problems at all.
My memory has given me no problems at all in this configuration and the only change from the rated speeds (DDR500 @ 250mhz 3-3-3-8) was 2T instead of 1T. Not that big of a deal, if you ask me. The boost to 2GB is quite impressive, especially in Vista.
I'd recommend against throwing out your memory just to keep two banks free. I was contemplating chicking my sticks and getting 2x1GB but I felt like that would be a waste of money. Now that I've upgraded, I realize it would have been a huge waste of money.