
Uuuuuugggh.
Anyway, Daftman, I watched the first anime first and loved it, but Brotherhood adds a lot of stuff in from the manga. If you plan on watching both, I'd watch the anime-specific FMA first then Brotherhood, since you get more not less story the second time around that way.
I WILL say I think my favorite character's ummm ... plot point was handled much better (and had WAY more build-up) in the original, so the original does do things differently in some cases besides just leaving out certain characters and plot elements and it actually works for what that series tries to do.