If you want you can get an HTC Droid Eris from Verizon, it's the Hero, but with another form and for Verizon, plus it has a proximity sensor:
http://www.androidcentral.com/htc-droid-eris-hands
Looking at the HTC Droid Eris, you can realise it looks nearly the same as the Google Nexus One (manufactured by HTC)
And the Nexus One is already available in US:
Nexus One Phone - Web meets phone.
I've got a European HTC Hero, but what makes me sad, is that I have bought it exactly 1 month before the official Release of the Nexus One (January 5 - so I bought it on December 5), and for the same price, since I got it without contract and unlocked: 530$
Now I am waiting for the Android 2.1 update for the Hero.
The HTC Legend deceived me... I was expecting a Snapdragon 1GHz processor with more RAM and more cool specs... all we get is a 600MHz processor, same RAM as the Hero.
If I had to choose between the Nexus One and the Legend, I guess I would go with the Nexus One.