I would like to reassure you on at least one point:
The rooting method used for new hardware works on both old and new hardware. Only the "softroot" method, using the removable storage from the old hardware does not work on new hardware.
If you want to root your Nook and possibly even update it to rooted 1.5, please us the following tutorial:
http://nookdevs.com/User_talk:Naerymdan