I've marked the solution but I'd like to point out that am generally interested in any other tips and/or comments you may have to add to this thread.

Your comments so far were very interesting and helpful. THANK YOU ALL for you time!

Well I more or less meant at this stage
Well what kind of games do you like?

You're a genius! Thank you!

It's "Country/Region United States"
Now I'm not sure if I chose this because Romania was not in the list or because I wanted to be consistent with my locale settings... :)
Ok, I think it is not a big deal... I'll pretend I'm an US citizen in a prolonged vacation in Romania... :))

Generally speaking, the Games on Demand service is grossly overpriced. There's pretty much one recent GoD game that's worthwhile in the UK, and that's Blazblue: Continuum Shift. Every other GoD game, with a handful of exceptions, are grossly overpriced. (They still sell Halo Reach for £50, for crying out loud)

Hm, can a profile be deleted in order to reuse the same gamertag for a new one?

Oh yeah, one piece of information about DRM. The way licenses for content are managed is pretty confusing when you first hear about it. When you buy something online, it is tied to both your profile *and* the first console you download it on. What this means is that you can share this content between all profiles on that console, even when you are offline. So you can buy, say an XBLA game or some DLC, and your wife can use it on the same console with her profile.

However, when you want to use your content on a different Xbox, you have to be logged in with your profile and connected to Xbox Live. If you ever change your Xbox, for example to get newer hardware, then you have to ask Microsoft to transfer your licenses to the new console if you want to use your stuff offline, which is kind of annoying.

Yeah, that shouldn't be a major problem. However, now you can only use US points with that account. You can buy US points online though, so you don't need to obtain physical prepaid cards from the US. Or you could just delete that account and create a new one with your true country if you wish.

Edit: I just realized that Xbox Live is not officially available in Romania, so you cannot even set your account to your true location. That's probably why you chose the US instead. I'm not sure how access to Xbox live works, but it sounds like you can simply set it to a fake address to get access even from countries that are not officially supported.

No, unfortunately a gamertag cannot be deleted. Once it is taken, it becomes generally unavailable. There may be one way around this, but it is kind of stupid. Namely, you can change your gamertag for 800 MSP. So if you change the gamertag on your old account, it might become available again for use on your new account. However, I cannot guarantee that this works and it's probably not worth $10 to try to get back your original name anyway.

This is a bit of a bummer, but it sounds worse than it is. Most people have their Xbox's connected to the internet at all times. If your one of those people, then you don't even need to bother with transferring the license.

Alternatively, instead of wading through Microsoft technical support, just go here.

Oh, wow! I didn't even know about that. Thanks for letting us know about it.

Well this may be SOLVED, but I typed this long post up for you earlier today so here ya go:

First off, congrats on winning a contest with an actual prize!

Here's your crash course:
1) They say you can stand your 360 vertically, DO NOT DO THIS (much, much higher rate of scratching disks).

2) The online component is the reason to have the 360, for this Gold is ideal, if you need a single account (i.e. no kids and you and your wife don't mind sharing saves or only one of you will play multiplayer) then get a 12 or 13 month card off Amazon.com for a fraction of retail (35-40 bucks is a good price, retail is 60 or 70 these days). OR you can get a Family pack which allows 4 gold accounts, one of them being a parent account (which can monitor playtimes of children or access to their content, can grant allowances, etc.). On second thought, don't share profiles, see point #9.

3) Benefits of Gold (as I see them, there may be more):
a) online multiplayer only available this way
b) heavily discounted DLC and Live Arcade titles available only to Gold members weekly (additional deals only available to Gold Family around one week per month), these deals are often 33-80% off so they are ultimately worthwhile.
c) Netflix app requires Gold, this is literally the easiest way to get 720p Netflix on your HDTV
d) Access to ESPN3 content (and the History Channel stuff I think).
e) Earlier access to demos (by about a week) and way faster download servers (I've gotten 2-3MB/sec down before, 1-1.5MB/sec is more normal). These demos sometimes weigh in at 2GB or more (not all do this) so fast servers do make a difference if you'd like to play that night
I suggest at least one Gold account, if you're getting 2, get a Family pack (directly from MS) they're 99USD/year and give you the main account as Gold and 3 assignable slots for other profiles (you can switch assignments during the year but there is a cool down period to re-add a dropped profile).

4) Points: 80 points is 1 USD, so 400 is 5 bucks, 800 is 10, 1200 is 15. Nearly all content is only available in points. Some of the content is stupid expensive. You can get discounted points cards online but usually not by very much (you might save 3 bucks off the 20USD card that gives 1600 points). I used to do this but it's a pain in the ass so I punched in my card to MS and buy full priced points from them. Sometimes MS offers free bonus points if you buy so much during an event or sale. These go on your account about 30 days after the event, but I got maybe 20-30 bucks worth of free points last year (of course I spent maybe 120 bucks on stuff). Games one Demand (these are retail games that you can download directly to your hard drive) are purchased with money, they are normally not nearly as cheap as you can get elsewhere and are limited to your console.
5) Crap controllers exist, RMA them or take them back if they feel too loose or drift. This is a defect and you should not accept it.

6) MS DRM: Disc games have a disc check DRM, even if you install the disks for performance you still need it in the drive, some games will make you switch disks even (lame, I know). Live Arcade (DLC also works like this!): These are retail games for download, have a ERSB rating, etc. You pay points and download, they get keyed to the console on which you bought them AND your account is tagged with them. This means they can be played by anyone on their "home" machine (if you buy a game any account logged in on that XBox 360 can play it), as well, if you're logged in on another machine and to XBox Live (i.e. online) you can also redownload and play those games/DLC. Anyone else logged in on the non-"home" machine cannot. You can migrate the home machine for any purchased content on MS' website to any console on which you're Live Profile has ever logged into the Live servers (this is tied to the machine, not the hard drive, so if you RROD you'll keep your drive and get a new machine, you'll want to migrate). I've done this and it's actually really easy.

DLC on a disk is installed to the hard drive, THERE IS NO DRM on this, you can pass the disk on to a friend after, you never need it again unless your hard drive goes. Downloaded DLC (the digitally purchased kind) works like Live Arcade games.

Indie titles: You have to be online to play, these are not ERSB rated, the community sets ratings for these. The demos for these are the full game and they simply turn off after 10 minutes or so of play until you buy them.

7) Game saves are tricky, make sure you consult some online forums before you move them to a new XBox 360, if the original ownership changes then the save can still be used but all achievements are disabled while using that save. Also some files for some games are marked Move only (no copy) so if you screw up or the hardware does, you could lose them (ask me how I know). There's a cable that can automate this between two 360s and it's well worth the 20 USD to avoid any issues. COMING SOON: This fall MS has promised we get cloud saves with Gold, meaning you can keep your saves in the cloud (and our profiles). This is awesome for those of us who have multiple home XBox 360s, my daughter switches between them and moving saves and profiles sucks.

8) There are HOWTO videos on your XBox 360, there's a whole backlog of videos (many with subjects suggested by the community) and they are actually really well done. They're worth a watch if you have questions.

9) Profiles, you may think you want to share, but you really don't. It's worse than sharing a Facebook account, just create 2.

10) Welcome back to the world where you can resell your games and buy used again. There's quite a few awesome websites that facilitate this. Also welcome to a world where the DRM still seems reasonable (only by comparison). At least it's no more locked down than consoles have ever been (and considerably less so if you consider some of Nintendo's antics over the years).

11) The XBox 360 version may cost a few dollars more than the PC version but there's not many games where it's in any way worse (and quite a few where it's better) plus you can swap with your buddies when done, this more than makes up for the price difference. If you have dual analog stick FPS issues (I do) then PC is preferable for those, they do play different on the 360 though. You won't find hardly any RTS games. Platformers are generally far better on console.

12) Your 360 can play any of your Zune Pass music and indeed it is pretty well done. There is a free trial if you'd like. The Zune movie rental prices are stupid expensive, avoid those. You can catch movie trailers even for rare or oddball movies on it, so it's worth installing. You DO NOT need a Zune to do this.

13) Your 360 is DLNA and UPnP compliant (you may have UPnP turned off in your router, turn it back on). This means with something like PS3mediaserver (free software) you can share/stream content off your PC onto your XBox 360.

14) Accessories: The Kinect is awesome, see point #15 for games, it acts as a webcam and can take voice commands. Be sure to calibrate it (it will prompt you) for each user. Kinect games tend to allow a psuedo second profile to be logged in even when someone else's non-Kinect profile is (letting people switch with each other in games). It's weird. It makes a terrible mic for games, though, since other players will get your game sound feedback too. Get a wireless headset for any real online multiplayer or co-op (50USD retail, 25-30 on sale). Really all other accessories are optional. Oh wait, no, get rechargeable packs instead of batteries, off brands have alternately been really good or really bad, depends. But any off brand charger will probably do (I have some off brand one from Fred Meyer). Cheap charge packs can be had from Amazon for as little as 6 bucks (if you're not color picky). Also, unpopular controller colors (especially pink) are frequently on sale, you can get them for 25 bucks instead of 50.

15) Games, Arcade is full of great co-op content, eat it up! Kinect games: Dance Central and Child of Eden are musts. Kinectimals and/or Fantasy Pets are also great for kids. Many Kinect games are not very good (read reviews), those 4 are. Most big ones feature demos now, so you can try The Biggest Loser game before buying it, for example. Your Shape is also good, but you'll probably be tired just from Dance Central:) Disc games? Eh, take your pick, there are craptons of great ones. Red Dead Redemption will have you busy for 100-200 hours.

POST too long, TBC

16) If you end up liking achievements: xbox360achievements.com, also will have tips on beating bosses or hard parts of games if you get stuck.

17) Even new Arcade games and DLC can go on sale, if it's too expensive, play something else and wait for a sale, 6 months max even for super popular stuff and you can save 1/3 or even 1/2 off. Often an entire game's DLC will be 66% or more off right before a sequel gets released.

18) You can win tons of pets and Avatar gear just by playing games, no need to buy that crap (you can if you want, but 3 bucks for a pet? No thanks!). Ditto on gamer pics and themes.

19) You have wireless, but wire it, you can get a 50 foot Rocketfish ethernet cat 6 cable from Best Buy for 20 bucks (hidden in the back away from the more expensive cables). and the ceiling runners (plastic with a nail) run like 1.50 a pack. Your Gold account entitles you to really fast servers, don't hobble yourself.

20) Give MS your real info, I know it feels like a privacy thing but it's how they do warranty and the thing has a damned good one. You're going to regret it later if you feed them bullshit you can't remember. Also, your Gold profile has permissive settings by default but you can lock it down if you're a privacy nut. First level phone support are morons, nice morons, but morons nonetheless, you're goal is to get to second tier support for anything complex.

The vast majority of those indy titles are horrendously awful, but its worth trudging through the crap to find the good ones. There are some excellent games on there for just 1 dollar.

fuck pc.. My brother had some fight night in xbox, it was pretty much great.
I said it before and I say it now.
And stargate sg-1 repertuar.. not gonna happen.
Anyway.. pc has too little boxing games.