Rooting my DroidX did not wipe the phone, so perhaps it just varies from phone to phone? Of course, the bootloader remained locked on that device, and rooting was an exploit.
So to clarify, we know for sure that unlocking the bootloader will wipe the phone. Do we have consensus that rooting will also wipe it? Perhaps when there's a 1-click method released it will not wipe the phone? I guess it's not that big of a deal... I was just hoping to get all the wiping done before I fully set up my phone. And I'm not sure if I want to root right away, so I was hoping to just unlock the bootloader without rooting and then set up the phone..
You don't need to root to unlock the bootloader on the nexus. I most likely will unlock the bootloader and wait to root since it does not have all the bloat that I usually root to remove.