The Merge is basically the Droid incredible with a keyboard. It was scheduled to come out later in the year when the Dinc was released. Unfortunately VZW decided NOT to carry it last minute for whatever reason. The VZW stores that did sell it, were not VZW corporate stores. They were the "authorized Verizon sellers" retail stores. It's very difficult to replace if it breaks (if you have the insurance plan) because there just aren't many out there. It was a great phone at the time, especially for those who like the physical keyboard. It was supposed to compete with the Droid 2. No idea why it wasn't fully released. Most of the Merge phones out there are unbranded and used on ALLTEL or US Cellular. VZW did allow you to activate it on their network....if you had one.
It is essentially a two year old phone at this point. It doesn't meet any of the hardware standards on todays phones, and unfortunately it will only run up to Gingerbread smoothly. ICS was not designed for the older hardware running older versions of Android.