Firmware Restore Risky iPhone 3G

As long as you dont interrupt the restore, it should be fine.
MacBook , Mini, Airport Express, iPhone 3G x 2 Mac OS X (10.5.4)

Patience is a virtue while restore. As mentioned above, dont interrupt it.
But in general, yes, restore is sort of risky. A certain number of people brick their phones while restoring, perhaps by human error, perhaps because they are impatient, but nevertheless, do it carefully.
There seem to be a lot of people here with phones that wont restore, or who attempt restore after restore after restore. But its hard to determine which came first, the chicken or the egg. Are their phones whacked because they restore so often or is it the other way around.

Yeah, Ive had to restore I think once before, right when I got it, and apple advised users to. I got it on the first day and its been fine, but lately its been acting very strange, so I thought it would be a possible solution.
Black Macbook 2.4Ghz, 2gig Ram, 250HD Mac OS X (10.5.4) iPhone 3G 16gig Black

A safer procedure would be a reboot (hold the sleep/wake & home button until the Apple logo appears).
MacBook , Mini, Airport Express, iPhone 3G x 2 Mac OS X (10.5.4)