To be perfectly fair, HANS (ie. the preferred non-CFW method to run modified versions of legit 3DS games) is as simple as running an exploit. There is no chance to brick your console with this unless you completely mess it up.
Anyway, one should never run a CFW on a 3DS straight off the internal NAND without significant reason to do so. Always run off EMUNAND (aka. a special partition of the SD card) so that mistakes are easily reversible.
I actually finished the process seven hours after the post I put in earlier.
The very first step (Set the right firmware level) is a LOT more risk fraught than the documents state. This is mostly due to the fact that the methods are quite flakey. If you're lucky and the stars align, you'll be through without any issues stated. (Or you start on firmware 9.0.2.20 off the bat I suppose)
If you're not so lucky, you'll find that degrading the firmware will require three different workarounds, which in turn shut you out of the straightforward method due to the fact that the degrading method will not respond at all unless you enter the initial state at a particular attack angle. I ended up with a half updated firmware on two separate occasions, and after a LOT of undocumented trickery I tricked the damn thing to patch in 4 different parts. (What I did was theoritically impossible and I should have ended up with an irreversable bricked console)
Bear in mind, I was working off a pretty badly cosmetically damaged console (It was in the fire) so although I could get it to play games, the console could have sustained one of a kind damage.
Then you find out that by doing so, you have to modify the SysNAND (when you're not supposed to) and THEN you find out that you need to revert the trick to get the firmware to the right level because you need to modify it back...
Then you find out that the method going in has a bug where the uninstall feature doesn't work, and that executing arbituary code only worked enough to get HBL to work exactly once, and you have to figure out why every other time using either the home button or browser exploit it'll just crash to the home button.
There's also at least three 3 not really documented missing holes (I had a friend time me when I did it) which will destroy your NNID among other things. I had a hell of a time doing manual repair on those.
It's fine in theory, as long as you follow all the instructions. The problem is falling off the rails is really damn easy due to undocumented pitfalls, and at least in my experience in the process (And with my friend doing so) is from a ease of use a lot harder than say the PSP's current methods.
Would I expect someone with a significant amount of technical experience to pull it off? Sure, I'm not that technically skilled, and I managed to muddle through in the end after reading through all the guides and docs and readmes, and having to resort to a much older method because of the undocumented issues and the like.
Would I expect the average person who thinks that all you need to do to patch a game is to follow these instructions, use this program and away you go in 30 minutes? Not a chance, and that's more the expectation I believe that most of the people here will be at.
(Additional disclaimer - I am also not offering to do any sort of tech support for the method used during my test. This isn't a piracy outlet, and besides, you'd have to pay me a LOT to help troubleshoot. If you're attempting this, I strongly recommend at least three different sets of instructions and to compare each of them because of nuances due to various deviations you may end up taking from the script, or actually learn enough to understand what following the script DOES on a a process level at the very minimum.)
