Thank heaven for alternatives. Android provided an excellent option for those who didn't want to live behind the high walls of "i" land. I've owned Motorola phones (Razr, V9m) for years and have always found them reliable and enjoyable to use--definitely not deserving of pejoratives like craparola. I now have the original Droid and after a learning curve, am highly pleased with it. Highly customizable, synchronizable with numerous email and other accounts, and with access to innumerable apps (including excellent navigation, Skymap, foreign language translation, Google Voice, the new Kindle e-reader, and one of my personal favorites--Find Starbucks). The browser is fast, and the phone plays very nicely with wireless networks and my various bluetooth devices.
I, too, have a strong preference for the physical keyboard, even if it means additional weight and thickness. For my purposes, the Droid is the perfect phone, combining business use with personal use, without undue emphasis on social networking uses more suited to the younger crowd. (I doubt I shall ever feel the need to Tweet people with the news that I am sitting in the drive-through lane at Chick-Fil-A.
Will definitely upgrade to Droid 2 in the future, and look forward to seeing Froyo on my current phone later this month. As a tip for other upgraders, I got my Droid through Wirefly.com at a very significant discount several months ago (49.95 with contract renewal).