I actually update my kernel quite often — every 2 versions or so — and almost always it goes without a hitch. However, I haven’t dealt with the laptop-hardware or other specifics. I might just try this …
In any case, my upgrade to 2.6.15 went fine on my laptop. However, when I booted up my home machine (currently on 2.6.12) I wasn’t able to write to some directories like /etc/ as root even though the permissions were set right. I suspect that it has something to do with the Reiserfs which I have for root. Have you or has anyone else reading this list heard of something like this happening?