I read an artical in a magazing recently about 1.1 vs 2.0 connections.
They are both ok with each other, they tested lots of products at various configurations and had no problems. Obviously if something did require the speed of a 2.0 then it might cause problems as previously said...
if you connect a 2.0 to a 1.1 then it reverts to 1.1
obviously
It might be better to ask for some recomendations on the reader/writters, I have a TwinMOS 7-in-1 Card Reader/Writer and im very happy with it. It sets up 4 drives on My Computer with the SMC being the J: drive. Once Ive put the SMC in then I can treat it just like a hard drive, and the LEDs flash to let me know when it is writing. It also came with its own extension cable, which is usfull to me as my USB ports are round the back. It is very compact, and I recently took it round a friends to grab some stuff off his PC. This was fine after I installed the software on his PC. Now I just pop my reader/writter (its connector folds inside to make it pocket friendly) in my pocket and we can share files very easily.
Im very happy with it.