I don't know how fast dual core will become the standard. But I will tell you that I love my Atrix. I haven't had many smartphones and I've never flashed a ROM or even rooted. I tried a launcher, but didn't like it. However, I am empathetic with those who do want to do that. If a person purchases a phone, I think they should have the freedom to alter the software as much as they like. I hope eventually the companies will allow that even if that freedom comes with limited or no warranty protection.
The reason I love my Atrix is probably because, as I mentioned before, I haven't had many smartphone before. I've had a couple of Pantech phones and another windows phone before I bought this one. This is my second Android phones and blows the garbage windows phones I had before out of the water. It hasn't been perfect, but there is not nearly as much freezing, so many app choices, much faster response. The novel fingerprint reader and webtop function are really cool. Though not unique for smartphones, this is also my first smartphone with with camera flash and a 3.5 mm jack. I always had to get a phone specific headset or an adapter for my previous phones. This is the first smartphone I could really just relax and enjoy without dealing with regular freezing, bad interfaces, hard to find headsets, bad cameras, bad music players, difficultly backing up contacts and just generally awkward design. I've had 2 or more of those problems on all my previous smartphones and not at all on this one. Yeah some things could be improved, but I'll be happy with this one for a while.
I feel myself getting a bit wordy, but back to the webtop function once more. There may be other androids out that are more responsive and easier to modify. Right now, I'm curious about where smartphones, tablets and pc's and cloud computing will meet or settle or not settle. I'm using a 3 year old desktop pc now running Vista that I don't anticipate having to replace for at least another year or two. And it isn't clear to me at all what I'll be using to replace it. A few months ago, I was thinking laptop on a dock to one or two larger displays. But maybe it will be a tablet I can dock to one or two larger displays and a keyboard? Or a smartphone docked to said displays and full size inputs? Will I become comfortable with storing my data remotely in a "cloud"? (I'm not now, though I'm considering making my home computer accessible remotely). This smartphone seems to at least point to the future. And for now, I like playing with the webtop function on my phone though I have no real need for it. I don't know of any other smartphone that can do that now?