Yes, the Gingerbread update breaks the phone. I had a Motorola D2 that kept locking up (before the update). I got a warranty replacement that was some better, but it was still buggy. The Gingerbread update worked better on my phone than on my wife's phone, but it was still worse than before. And you couldn't go back. My wife suffered through 18 months with one D2. The Gingerbread update would make it so we had to do a factory wipe on the phone once every six weeks or so. She upgraded to an iPhone as soon as she could get out of that one. I did shortly thereafter as well.
If you don't own this phone yet, I strongly recommend something different.