I have tried capacitive touch screen, my present phone has one and I hate every single minute of it, the lack of precision especially while browsing the web is really annoying... I've had my phone for 4 month and I'm sure that I will never get another capacitive touch screen ever again.

About the scratching on the screen, it will happen on any phone if you don't protect it, I have friends with iPhone 3G and 3GS and their screens and in an horrible state whereas when I sold my N800 that I had used for 1 year it didn't have a single one... so I guess it also depends a lot on how you use it.

One thing I used to do with my N800 and after that my 5800 is to take short notes on the screen, it's really convenient when you are in a hurry and need some details, I've been missing that a lot.

Resistive touch screen are getting better just look at the difference with the N900 compared to older technologies!