If you're a complete idiot like me, you read the news at the iPhone Dev Team blog and was excited that you could upgrade your 2G iPhone to the new 2.2 firmware with no extra tricks... and you just did it.
If you're also an idiot, you probably did not "unhide" applications that you had previously hidden using Cydia's BossPrefs, Poof or Categories. Also, you probably hid BossPrefs and Cydia, which means you couldn't "unhide" jack squat nor install something like Poof which would allow you to do the same thing.
If you're an extra idiot, you didn't read the comments on the iPhone Dev Team blog post and see the pointer from Gibbles to BigBoss' advice on what to do if applications are missing:
Issue #2: iPhone backup works fine. But now you only have a few icons. Cydia is missing. What can you do where did all your icons go?
First, to address issue #2, missing icons. This occurs because you had installed categories and moved a bunch of files into folders. When you restore, your springboard plist will be restore and that contains a bunch of hidden icons. Here are your options
1) Prevent this situation by unhiding icons and/or deleting your folders before you do yoru final backup before you upgrade
2) After your jailbreak ends, before you restore your backup, install some things that will help you such as: openssh, poof, bossprefs (any of these you did not have installed before would be great). Here is a prioritized list of options:
a) Install Poof if BossPrefs was hidden install BossPrefs if Poof was hidden. Either of these can completely unhide all your apps. If both were used and hidden then move to B.
b) If settings is available, run that. Enable restrictions, disable restrictions. All your apps will be visible. If settings was hidden, move to C.
c) SSH into the iPhone with scp or ssh. If you don’t know how, use this guide. Navigate yourself over to /var/mobile/Library/Preferences and delete com.apple.springboard.plist. Respring your iPhone by typing “killall SpringBoard” into SSH or, if you don’t know how to do that, just reboot. All your hidden apps will be visible.
So, you probably didn't realize that you could go into "Settings" -> "General" -> "Restrictions" and simply turn on and then off Restrictions... which unhides all apps.
You probably dinked around with past customized firmwares for a few hours, wasting your precious time. Don't do that again.
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Thanks for saving me a few hours stressing and finding a solution I thought would be a little more complex.
your a champ...
This should be the first result on google when you are desperately looking to find your missing icons.
Thank you very much.
thanks!