wheel bearings (FWD)

[eclipsed at 3am]

I can hear my wheel bearings starting to go(a loud whhirrrr noise when im going above 20mph or so) so im going to replace them. i just had a few questions regarding them.

has anyone had the wheel bearings wear out, and if so, could the sound that they make possibly be something else that is starting to wear out that sounds exactly the same as bad wheel bearings? i know wheel bearings are important, but id want to fix an immediate problem first if its not the bearings making the noise. (im pretty sure its the wheel bearings though)

does anyone have any good recommendations on wheel bearings? I was just gonna go to autozone and buy their generic brand. I think its like $40 per bearing, when i replaced them in my 1g it was just under $100. Is there a good brand that i should be going with?

chances are, I'm not gonna replace the bearings myself, a friend of mine who owns a regular full service auto garage would do it, unless he would let me in there to do it myself(unlikely). Is there any important things that i should let him know regarding this? of course he would know how to replace wheel bearings, but I know that dsm's are different on certain things that regular all-around mechanics wouldnt know about. so would replacing the wheel bearings on a FWD eclipse be any different than replacing on any other FWD... honda or ford or mazda?

are there any things that could easily be replaced or done while the wheels are off? i have new brake pads too so i think ill have him put those on the front.

anything else i should know about? thanks a lot!

[eclipsed at 3am]

sooooo...anyone?