I agree with you it really isn't that bad, I still prefer swype since I've become use to that. The Samsung keyboard does move pretty good with XT9 enable too. If you are not a big fan of swype I would recommend trying this out.
Yeah I like having the T9 option. I had to download smart keyboard in 2.1 to be able to use it. I ended up back with swype though. still nice to have T9 stock on 2.2.
Sure you can, it's just not done in the Samsung keyboard settings. Unfortunately, the keypress sound is tied to the Audible touch tones setting in the sound settings menu. This setting turns on or off the keypress tones in the phone dialer application. If you turn that off, you will turn off the keypress sounds in the Samsung keyboard as well.
I do like the Gingerbread keyboard from the market, but after turning off the keypress tones, and turning on the XT9 Predictive text in the Samsung keyboard, it is probably just as good.