i would say to take the time to learn how its supposed to work before hacking it all to bits.
for example, right out of the box, the wii will not let you copy saves for some games to the SD card. there are hacks that try to get around this, and sometime they dont always work. if you took the time to learn about these "untransferable" saves when you get your wii, then one day when you come across a save that wont transfer to the SD card, you will have a good idea why the console is behaving the way it does. if you did NOT take the time to learn about these saves, and instead you just assumed that something was broken, you are more likely to do something stupid trying to fix it and tear something up.
also, there are a bunch of hacks you can use with names that you might not recognize unless you have played with the console.
Replace Health Screen with Backmenu, Auto-Press A at Health Screen, Block Disc Updates, Block Online Updates, No System Menu Background Music, No System Menu sounds AT ALL, Move Disc Channel, Remove NoCopy Save File Protection, Recovery Mode (DISABLE below hack first)
Recovery Mode press Dpad-R on GC pad 4P, Region Free EVERYTHING, No-Delete HAXX,JODI,DVDX,DISC,DISK,RZDx, Force Wifi Connection Test Failure, Blackscreen at Wii System Menu startup!, Freeze Wii at Healthscreen!
if you just start up a program and say "oh shit! TURN ON ALL TEH HAXX!!" without knowing what they all mean, then you are gonna end up really fast with a big white paperweight.