@Chumby008, it sounds like you weren't around before the stub service was all that we had, so in a nutshell, this is how it worked and I assume will work again once Duane is done bringing back the full service.
Everybody had an account on the chumby.com website that was password protected ( and separate from the forum accounts). Once you were logged into your chumby.com account, you could see a list of all your registered devices. There was a section of the website that had all of the Chumby apps that were available with descriptions and you would drag the apps down to a timeline for your Chumby device. Some apps had various settings that you could customize from this screen, too, like inputting your zip code for a weather app or something like that.
It was a pretty intuitive system. I am assuming that the same interface will be restored once Duane works out all of the details of bringing back the service.
*I know I'm leaving out a lot of what the original service used to be like just for time and space concerns. Please, if I am misrepresenting some aspect of the way it used to work due to my not remembering correctly or if I'm leaving out your favorite part of the original service, please feel free to correct me or add to what I've written here.