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When looking for roms you'll have to try them out for yourself. I know it sounds like a pain and time consuming, but the fact is that each rom has different features and you'll have to find the one that has what you want. Virtually all roms can overclock if you flash the proper kernel.
For example I use a galaxy s3 and there are many 'mainstream' roms with threads containing 6 million + views. They are good and fast roms for sure, but I am nitpicky and there are certain things that I don't like about them. Therefore I use something less popular but is stable and suits my needs.
 
Short answer, there is no 'best rom'.  ;)
 
PS. Look for something with a good amount of views and good feedback, but it doesn't have to be the most popular!

In this guide I will not tell you how to root your phone, because every phone is a bit different. But I will tell you where to look for a guide and what to watch out for. I will explain root, the advantages, disadvantages and dangers. I will show a few examples on what you can do with root. Please try to remember the underlined terms, I will explain them once and then continue using them during the post. Of course I am grateful for others posting other things you can do and mistakes I made (please with corrections), because I don't know everything. I will then try updating this post as soon as possible.
 
So let's begin:
First of all rooting is for Android. Not for iOS. It's comparable to jailbreaking, but much more.
 
The basic principle:
You gain root access! This means you get priviliged controls within the Android system. Meaning you can go deeper within the device, being able to access about everything within the Android OS. This gives you administrative rights.

Well now what? Can't I already customize Android to the full extent? Don't I have access to everything I need? What's the point?
 
Well if you're asking these question you don't know that Android's possibilities go far beyond what you get out of the box. But first to why it doesn't come rooted out of the box:
 
It can be dangerous! Don't hold me responsible for what you do with your device. Suddenly you have access to the core of the OS. You are now able to read and write to every part of your phone. First of all this means malicious things can be written into the system, where they would have access to everything and second of all you are now able to delete key files of the OS, potentially the whole thing. When stuff like this happens and you can't boot up your phone anymore, then your phone is "bricked". The official meaning of bricked is that your phone won't boot up what so ever. Mostly I'm going to us it as a way of expressing that your still able to access the recovery, more on that later.
 
But I'm not trying to keep you from rooting your phone, cause rooting is freakin' awesome. You just have to be aware of the dangers. And there are a few guidelines one should follow to prevent bricking. This leads us to the next two topics: Superuser and Custom Recovery. These are the two essential things of root.
 
Superuser
Superuser should automatically be installed when rooting your phone. If not it should be the first thing you download from the Play Store after rooting:
Superuser
 
What Superuser does is basic, but utterly important. It overlooks the root access. If an application asks for root access it will prompt you asking if it should allow. This means you can be sure that only applications that you trust and need root will get it. This is barrier for malicious applications. You can choose if it shall prompt again or not.
 
Custom Recovery
The Custom Recovery is the last place you can go when your device is bricked and it is the place on the phone where seemingly everything is possible.
Every Android phone comes with a recovery. Booting into it from a shutdown phone is different from device to device. Try looking for yours here, else google it.
 
When your phone is bricked you can Factory Reset it from there. But that's no fun because everything will be lost...
That's where the custom recovery comes in. Many root installation come with a custom recovery, but I recommend downloading the latest. The easiest way this is done is over an app you can download from the Play Store. ROM Manager
 
From here you can flash (install, do once) and boot into ClockworkMod Recovery (CWM Recovery), one of the most popular custom recoveries.
 
Navigation through the recovery is done through the hardware keys (exception touch recoveries). Usually volume up is up, volume down is down, power is select.

 
What I want to talk about now is backup and restore:
This option will open a submenu where you can either backup, restore or delete. And some more advanced options which will leave out.
So backup creates a Nandroid Backup, that means it'll create a full backup of the current system, a way of preventing bricking or better to say undoing it. So when everything is lost, you can restore to a previous state of the phone. So before tinkering around with root stuff, especially flashing, more on that later, always preform a Nandroid Backup, you will be grateful for it, I definitely was. The backup will be saved on your sdcard in a folder called clockworkmod and usually the file (which actually is a folder) is named after date and time. Under restore you can select a file to restore and the phone will be perfectly restored to that state. Under delete you can delete previous backups you don't need anymore. Then after backup or restore reboot. Now we continue to installing zips, which is called:
 
Flashing
This is one of the biggest advantages of root. What it is? It's putting something onto the Android system. The technical details are irrelevant. I'll just give you an example: Say you want to customize your notification bar. You can download the file from somewhere and then flash the new bar over the old one. Basically with flashing you can do pretty much anything on you're phone.
Now the files you flash are zips. You can download zips from over all the web, but the best place to go looking is:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/ (XDA)
Depending on the zip, you have to do stuff before flashing it. But most of all: Backup!
Sometimes you have to wipe the cache, sometimes the data/factory reset. These are all options under the CWM Recovery. What you have to do for a specific zip should be explained where you download it. That is why I recommend XDA because they provide step-by-step information on most of their zips.
There are two main flashable zip types: ROMs and MODs
ROMs:
Every android phone is running a stock ROM. This is kinda like the "OS" of the phone. It's what you normally see and feel when your using your phone. Touchwiz is a ROM, stock android is a ROM. You can change your ROM by flashing another one. This almost always requires a data wipe. One of the most known custom ROMs is CyanogenMod, it is based on stock android:
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/
MODs
are modifications you can make to an individual ROM. These don't require a data wipe, but can a cache wipe so read the description. This includes stuff like visual customization.
 
Root Apps
Root apps are apps that require root permission. There are thousands of these that can do many different things expanding the horizon of android. First of all you might need something called BusyBox for some root apps. BusyBox is a set of additional commands not native to android. Some root apps require these commands. ""
Here to install BusyBox.
 
So here some of my favorite root apps (post more):
 
ROM Manager: This is already mentioned, but beyond installing and booting CWM, you can install zips and manage your backups...
 
Root App Delete: This app allows you to uninstall preinstalled applications
 
AdAway: This app will make sure you don't see any ads
 
TriangleAway: For Samsung Devices. This app will reset your flash counter, a counter that counts how many times you flashed custom zips.
 
There are many more things you can do with root like:
-Overclocking
-Flashing a Kernel
-Edit preinstalled apps
-Unlock SIM Card
-And much more...
But for this basic guide I will leave it at this, maybe there will be more to come... And you can always go surfing around at the XDA Developer Forum.
 
Guides to Rooting
You will also find most guides on the XDA Develepor Forum.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/
You may also google it...
You must watch out that you find a guide for exactly your device model. For example Samsung has about 5 different S3's, so make sure that the model number is exactly the same.
You can find your model number under settings -> about device/info.

Sorry for the re-post. This forum section kinda died when we migrated and this post was lost, but I link people here a lot when they ask me this question.
 
I get a lot of questions on YouTube, but some of the ones that come up a lot are

"How do I get companies to sponsor me with products?"
"How do I get more subscribers on YouTube like you?"
"What do I need to study in school to do a job like yours?"

Hopefully this story of my journey serves as both an encouraging and cautionary one.

I was in high school when I really got into computer hardware. In Grade 11/12 and in my first couple of years at the University of British Columbia I spent most of my time tinkering with my computer, hanging out on hardware forums and playing video games. Honestly that's a big part of why school didn't really go well for me at the post-secondary level. I didn't devote enough time to my studies and I was on academic probation after having failed first year calculus twice when I made the decision to drop out and switch from working part time at my local computer store to a full time position.

I started at NCIX by working just weekends, then I moved my school schedule to Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and I was working Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday at NCIX. When I left school I switched to being a full time sales representative at the Langley store. I worked like that for a few months, then I had to leave NCIX due to a contractual obligation that I had to work for a different employer during the summer that year. I went to the President of NCIX with a request that once I was finished my other contract that I be allowed to have my job back, and instead of giving me my job back he explained that I was selling more high end gaming systems than any other sales person in the company and offered me a position at head office taking care of the system configurations on the website. I was thrilled.

I finished my other job and went back to NCIX to build high end systems and make sure that the computers on the website were compatible and up to date. I wanted to do more than just buckets of parts for our systems though and at that point one of the best ways to differentiate was liquid cooling. In order to achieve my goal of building liquid cooled systems, I had to have access to the right components. That was when I asked my boss why the heck NCIX didn't have any selection of custom water cooling parts. He basically said "I dunno. If you want them, you source them." So I did.

In a span of about a year NCIX went from selling no water cooling components at all to being #1 in Canada with every significant water cooling manufacturer (Swiftech, CoolIt, Thermochill, EK Water Blocks, D-TEK, Danger Den, Koolance, you name it). Once I'd demonstrated that success it was time for me to graduate to managing some real lines. I went from taking care of random widgets to core business components like SSDs, RAM, motherboards, and networking. Over time my responsibilities shifted and instead of being the one placing orders daily for everything, I was given support from other team members to focus on marketing and promotional campaigns.

Times changed, people changed... I glanced at the calendar and realized a few years had passed me by and all of a sudden I was a Category Manager rather than a Product Manager, with a team of Product Managers reporting to me, and I was heavily involved in strategy and marketing for key categories like CPUs, notebooks, video cards, SSDs. I was also still product managing some lines, and I was still overseeing the PC system configurations & marketing as well. I was overloaded and it was time to delegate and step back a bit. I also knew that my baby was coming soon.

When the baby was born, my pace didn't really slow down. That's what happens at a vibrant, fast-growing company. There is always some exciting new project to work on, or a new stretch target that you're motivated to hit.

That long story (hopefully not TLDR) leads me to the answer to all of those questions above: GET A REAL JOB. What you may or may not have noticed is that nowhere in the blurb above did I say anything about making videos. YouTube videos are not a real job unless you are incredibly talented, incredibly hard working, or incredibly lucky (usually some combination of the three) and honestly it's not that lucrative.

If you have fun making videos and you're passionate about it, do it as a hobby, but don't expect to get any free products or money for doing it. That way if you break out and gather a huge following, then that's awesome, but if you don't then you hopefully enjoyed every minute of that too. The audience isn't stupid. They know who is doing it for $$ and who is doing it out of passion, so ask yourself if you have the passion to make videos even if no one watched them. If the answer is no, then it's like that no one will be passionate about watching your videos either.

I don't have any relevant pictures or videos to link to, so instead I'll post a link to the first video I ever uploaded to YouTube about the Sunbeam Tuniq Tower. It should give you some inspiration because if THAT guy can build one of the largest tech channels on the YouTubez by working hard, being passionate, and having some good luck, then maybe you can too!