I went thru two updates and my phone is working perfectly.
The first time, I got a downloading symbol like what we normally see when we download an app. It finished in a couple of minutes, if that.
It then said I had an update available for download (seemed like the same one). I accepted it, it warned me to do nothing with the phone until it was done.
This time, my screen went black except for a green sync symbol and a timeline/loading symbol. It went thru several half-boots with the screen going black multiple times.
It finally rebooted completely and I got a "update successfully applied" or something like that.
I wonder if people are bricking their phones because they're not waiting for the full update and reboot to take place.
EDIT: Oh, and after my second update, I was not offered the update again. I suspect the first update is possibly the HTC update and the second the Sprint Firmware.