A few questions

Hey guys,
I've kind of been out of the PSP homebrew loop for a while, mainly because I was waiting on my 1gb mem stick and partially because I was pissed that I couldn't play GTA without upgrading my firmware and losing my ability to play metal slug :).
However, I finally got my mem stick and I've been reading around and I havent managed to come across a straight answer. Is it possible to play the games that force you to upgrade firmware as of right now? I.e. could I play GTA liberty city stories and the newer games without upgrading firmware and never being able to play homebrew apps again?
Also, are the SNES emulators past the point of slow framerates and crappy sound yet?

If i was you i would get LCS try it, if you need to upgrade...upgrade...would you rather play a old snes game or a awesome fully 3d amazing graphical psp GTA game?

I got LCS yesterday and its so awesome, just upgrade, im sure there will be a downgrader soon.

I could either have:
hundreds of SNES games, many neogeo games, any of my old favorites, or just one game that I'll beat in a week and never play again and then never play my old faves again.
...yeah.

Go for GTA: LCS, like i said there will be a new downgrader soon and then snes games and stuff you can play on your pc, why waste money on a bloody psp if your not gna use it to its full potential?

IMHO using the PSP to its full potential would be enabling it to play homebrew AND UMD games.

IMHO?

Well i doubt you can play all homebrew and UMDs, they are cracking down on it now.

Also, before I stopped paying attention to PSP stuff (about the same time that Castlevania came out for DS) the WAB version changer didnt work for GTA, is that a different story now?