This is my opinion on the whole keyboard debate. The N900 and it's keyboard is why I chose that phone amongst totally loving Maemo having a N810 prior. I love having a h/w keyboard and couldn't see myself using a touchscreen. Just really loathed the idea.

My brother got a Galaxy S, and I heard about swype but didn't think too much of it. I saw my brother a few weeks later swype out a lengthy text in a few moments, and I was like whaa. I started messing around with it, and I got a droid phone from work not too long ago, the motorola cliq 2 with a hw keyboard, it also has swype as well. You know what for writing emails, I've been using swype more and more to do so than the hw keyboard. The only time I find myself really using the hw keyboard is by habit or when driving (I know I shouldn't).

If the consumer N9 comes out sans keyboard, with a really slick UI, blows things out of the water spec wise, and HAS swype (as it is available for symbian) I totally will not mind.

Would I rather have a hw keyboard, of course. Will I not buy it if it doesn't as long at some point it gets swype, absolutely not. Swype will be key factor as the days of pecking and typing are not an option for me.