Ah, so it just never yelled at me before because I was always running the most recent OS available in the 8500 section. Makes sense.
It looks as if it is updating me to the same OS that is posted for the 8530 in the 8500 section. It's my understanding that this OS, or the one right before it, killed reception for battery life. Hopefully that's either a false rumor, or it was put back to normal with the new OS.
ETA : 84% so far, not too bad for living on the outskirts of the 3g area where reception is spotty and unreliable.