I recently bought a PC phone edition off ebay and it's got a lot of xda-developers stuff on it - I have no idea what most of it is and even less of an idea of how to use it. I want to simplify what's on my phone. How can I tell what I've got? If I don't want it, how do I get it off? How customized can I make this phone?
Any help or advice would be great!!!

Do you have a list of programs? If you really don't want all the programs on there you can "cook" your own rom, meaning put what YOU want on it..

But the XDA look you can completely change...go to google and search for 127 theme generator and you can customize any thing you want from background, colors, etc...

Also activesync is what you need to get your pda talking to your computer..with that you can add and remove any programs to your pda...

Have fun with it...