Livspop:

The Alltel released OS should be the same as what's on your Alltel Pearl, but I guess there's the possibility that they made some minor tweaks to the OS between releasing the OS to manufacturing and releasing the OS for download. Since the version number is the same, that's what I'd call a "no-no" in SW dev (two diff releases, same version info) but I guess that could have happened. If only a few files were updated, it could go quite quickly.

It certainly isn't five minutes for a "regular" OS update (like when I just applied the .81 Alltel update to my phone running the Sprint .71 version).

Also, did you click the box to backup and then restore your phone during the update?