I, too, have the constant urge to do clean installs on all of my equipment. You can do a clean install on your 8900 - there are actually instructions on this forum. I don't have a link but I found it by searching, I guarantee you can too.
However, with the release of 5.0 growing ever closer, I'd personally just live with the upgrade and do the clean wipe after 5.0 hits. That is what I'm doing - I'm running the .250 update as well and I also get the millisecond hangs and hourglasses, but performance as a whole and battery life is way up, at least for me.
Good luck with whatever you do!