NOTE:  DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES USE THE 3.0 BETA ON YOUR IPHONE.  YOU WILL BRICK IT.

That out of the way…

I found the iPhone 3.0 firmware beta after a bit of digging.  For legal reasons, I can’t link it to you, but I’d wager if you were a Pirate in the San Francisco BAY you might figure out where it is.  Or just go to Livecrunch, they’re not afraid to point it out.

It’s a really simple process; find and get the firmware, go to iTunes, hold SHIFT, click UPDATE(NOT RESTORE!) and navigate to the firmware from there.  At time of writing(3/19/08) the jailbreak isn’t available for this version of the firmware yet.  At least not for Windows.

So I’ve installed it; the only issues I’ve had so far are A) I can’t access my music.  Big problem. Upon re-syncing my music, it shows up.  Wooo. B) I can’t let it connect to the iTunes store.

With regards to my music, the only curiosity of the situation to me is that the music is *there*- iTunes recognizes it, shows that I have 4~ GB of music on it, but it’s not showing up on the iPod to play.  When I get home, I’m going to try re-syncing my library and see if that fixes it(or in the meantime, I’ll try to find something like sharepod to copy the music off and re-sync).  I’ll update on this when I get a second at home.

As far as connecting to iTunes, it’s simple to circumvent- when you plug in your touch and the status above shows “Connecting to the iTunes Store…” click the X to the right of the text.  Syncing still works.

Downsides from 2.2 -> 3.0: jailbreak isn’t available, meaning no Cydia, no Winterboard, no BossPrefs, etc.  I’ll wager this problem will go away as soon as the iPhone Dev Team have a chance to work on it. 
This whole pesky iTunes Store problem.  However…
EDIT: Can’t get YouTube to work.  Waiting for a workaround.

Upsides from 2.2 -> 3.0: iTunes still works ON the touch, and should still work without having the Touch connected to the PC- download your tunes, connect, sync.
BLUETOOTH, BABY!  Confirming this, it works, love it, sucks for you if you don’t have it.

(pops to larger)
Also: now pressing home from the main screen takes you to a new “Search iPod” Screen.  Handy when you have 10+ pages of apps/bookamrks. 
Numerical battery gauge in addition to the battery icon.
CUT/COPY/PASTE.

Still playing with this, I’ll update more as the situation updates.