Personally no hw qwerty is not the issue for me that it seems to be for others.
There's portable BT/USB keyb's that'll always be better for serious typing than built-ins.
N9 is better in just about every other respect hardware-wise:

*64GB Storage
*Improved SoC
(mostly a die-shrink & a big clock bump but not as simple as that, plus likely to have good overheard for OC'ing above the default GPU/CPU clocks)
*NFC
*polycarbonate body (likely to have better cellular reception)
*Way better screen (resistive's awesome for some applications, but the N9's screen is far better overall when one carefully analyses both)
*1GB Ram
No doubt I'm forgetting something...

Definitely or possibly coming:
*BT4.0 (coming)
*FMRX/RDS (coming, FMTX not 100% certain yet)
*Flash11 (looking very unlikely, but not ruled-out completely yet)
No doubt I'm forgetting something...

Software is quickly becoming less of an issue now that open mode is a reality w/AEGIS.
If Nokia doesn't open more of the default UI/apps, & if they don't improve/fix them quickly enough over time.
Then users will have the option to switch to bits from: Cordia/MeeGoCE/Plasma or do an entire UX transplant.
All these projects are coalescing around one another nowadays, including one responsible or the core/middle-ware.

This time round there's universal agreement to establish 100% independence, from the Base to the UX.
So as to be free from the whims of large commercial contributors....
So if N9 users aren't happy with how Maemo* (& possibly work from Meltemi later) or Tizen's progressing they'll have options.

*I prefer to call it that instead of meego