This is certainly a nice phone. Don't feel bad about some new phone being better than what you have. There is ALWAYS going to be a better phone release a few months after you buy the best current phone.
You just have to learn to live with it, suck it up, and hold out until your contract is up so you can get another discount.
Besides, I don't think this is coming to Verizon.
To those who say the physical keyboard isn't important, there are still situations where I find the physical keyboard exceptionally useful. Mostly for games, or applications that use the whole screen (and messaging apps).
For example, try playing "Project I.N.F." which is an online MMO shooter free on the market. Using the on-screen keyboard forces you to use all your screen to type a message. Someone could have killed you by the time you finish and view the game screen again. The Directional pad works wonders for those 2D side scrolling shooters. I can't imagine trying to use some on screen buttons for that.
How about that "Mystic" 3D game? I don't think it even has any on-screen controls at all for moving/walking.
Another use is for comfort. I can pull the physical keyboard out and use it to hold my phone while watching a youtube video. This also helps prevent me from touching those sensitive home, search, menu and back buttons by accident (That lip on the bottom of the phone when in portrait view helps give you something to grab without touching these buttons also).
In-fact, the only real issue with the keyboard is the fact that it is not centered evenly from both sides (right side is off-placed by that directional pad). Other than that, it works pretty decent, and with moderate hands-on time you do get use to it. If you resort to using the on-screen keyboard most of the time you will never get use to the physical one, though.
So don't push the keyboard off as useless. Even though its not perfect, there are times when it is an ideal input option that I can choose to use or not, when I want.
What I would like to see is the Glyde's compact keyboard (which worked fine with my skinny fingers) along with 2 flat+round thumb/joy-sticks (Something like the PSP's 1 joystick). One located on each side of the keyboard, to keep the keyboard centered and feel natural.
But anyway, I'm probably always going to stick to whatever phone is the best out that also includes a physical keyboard.
