Few emulation/version questions

Christmas is coming up, and i was thinking about getting a psp. I have been skimming through this forum, and have obtained a lot of information. However, I am still unclear on a lot of things and i was wondering if you guys could help me out:

1)If i went to buy a psp at walmart/gamestop, what version should i expect. also, would anyone advise me NOT to get a preowned one, because they are cheaper, and probably have an older version on them?

2)the main reason i would get a psp, would for emulation purposes. it seems the emulators run quite poorly, but i was wondering if they really run as bad as you guys make it seem. are the latest versions better?

3)If i have version 1.5 to run emulators, would umd's work on it. such as socom fireteam bravo or gta?

4)do any of you forsee version 2.0 being hacked to run emulators?

thanks for everything guys.

at least help me out with #3

http://www.sonyxteam.com/

Go here

they have a fix for any version up to 2.0

versio 2.0 is downgradable to run emu's and I think there is a spoof to make it think its higher then 2.00 when its still 1.50.

On 1 Used is fine, I say buy it from GameStop, Software Etc, Funco Land or Babbages. They are all the same company and MOST IMORTANTLY they offer a warranty for 15.00 that covers ur psp for a 1yr. So not matter how you break it they will just veriify it does not work and hand u a new one. (THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO DEAD PIXELS, Sony only says they can deal with that)

1) I would expect to get a 1.52 -ish if its new, which can be upgraded to 2.0 and downgraded to 1.5 for full homebrew compatibility. As for a preowned one, In most cases it would be alright, unless they upgraded to 2.1+, but you could always check if its preowned. Like i have a preowned from EBGames, with 1.5, which i got for $200 + $15 no-questions-asked warranty return policy for 6 months and im pretty happy.
2)Most emulators run pretty well i would say, very near 100% if you fiddle with settings and set up the psp clock speed and frameskip.
and the ports like Doom work about full-speed as well.
I would say most of the emulators and homebrew are very good, and more like GBA will soon be very good too after some developement, but a lot of progress is being made.
3) With a version changer to trick your psp into thinking its a higher version all UMD's are playable with an exception..... at this moment, the first umd that doesnt work GTA:LCS has been released, which uses some video codec files that only 2.0+ has, but hopefully soon(its only been like a day) some way to play it will be released...at least i really hope. but you could still upgrade to 2.0 and play GTA and downgrade again when you're bored to 1.5 again. right now all other umd's work with 1.5
4)A lot of progress is being made on the eboot loader for 2.0, and many homebrews are now able to be run with 2.0, but there is still a ways to go for full compatibility if at all possible. I forsee everything but ISO loaders to work, which uses kernel mode, which ends up being pretty good. but thats just my guess

anyways, hope that helps
if you need anything else you cant find, ask away

psp newbie, what about that doomu.wad i want, [email protected]