I'm in the same boat here. I currently have the original Droid running 2.2 and most of the time, the phone runs well enough except when I need it most. Sometimes, it just seems sluggish to get up and go. As such, I'm looking for a new phone with a physical keyboard. It doesn't have to be dual-core. Someone had mentioned the HTC Merge and I saw Phil's hands-on review which got me excited about that phone but it has been quiet.
Verizon has been very good to me and their service has been very reliable where I live, so I would like to stay with them. Although, If they aren't getting any decent qwerty-slide-out phones than I might jump to T-mobile for the HTC G2.