Cell Phone Quandary

I own a Blackberry 8830 World Phone. It's a great not so little PDA, but has kind of lousy audio quality. Frankly not the best phone. But I am a crackberry addict because the email server is so great. My second battery stopped taking a charge last week so I stopped at the Verizon Store and they informed me that they didn't have any more because they tell me that they are phasing the phone out. I have gone through three of the darn things in two years because the charging port goes bad over time. I managed to find a new battery and although the phone shows it's charging, it's actually not. I looked at the new touchscreen Blackberry Storm but after the brutal New York Times article last month, was a little worried about of it's apparent slow and tedious keyboard response. I hear that it is a great fun toy but the guy at Verizon said that this iteration is not practical for actually writing and texting. The Brickbreaker Game is supposed to be really improved on the Storm but that is of lesser importance to me. Research in Motion is now a dull symphony at rest. In order to sexy up their product line, they have become less and less practical.

So now, what to do - I could get an iphone and break my contract - which covers three phones in my family - but I don't think ATT's network is quite as comprehensive and it might prove expensive. Does anyone have any recommendations on a decent phone in the Verizon family? I had a curve initially but found that the buttons were a little too small for my fingers. Verizon says that there will probably be a next generation fix on the storm, but who knows how that will turn out. He suggested the new palm as an option but I don't know how long the company will be around.

What to do?