I have a tremendous number of rollover minutes available on my
1000-minute shared family plan, and was thinking of dropping a phone
and/or moving to a smaller-base minute plan . if I do this, do I lose
all my saved rollover minutes ?

I am having a terrible time with Cingular's GSM system here in Sarasota, FL.
Other firms offer CDMA-based services.  What else is there?  (Cingular's
older TDMA worked like a charm, now no longer available.)
When all is said and done, will one technology survive?  Maybe that is ...