Hate is a strong word. There were only a few things that I didn't like about Sense:
- the inability to customize the static bottom of the launcher, I guess we'll call it a dock. My Sense phone had a physical phone button, so a software button for the dialer was a waste of space, and there was no way to put anything else there. I understand that this is now fixed...
- I never particularly liked Peep at all, but that was easily ignored
- the custom Sense email app on eclair was buggy. I am guessing that was fixed long ago.
- the launcher was a little laggy on things like screen transitions, etc.
- Sense on 2.1 anyway would put up a blown up photo of the contact record of the caller that was always terribly pixelated
- I didn't like that event reminders would put a "snooze" button on the lock screen that was located just where my thumb would go when I pulled the phone from my pocket. I also didn't like the fact that the calendar event would remind me every 5 minutes if I didn't clear a notification, which became old really fast when I was driving to a meeting 45 minutes away with the notification tone going off every 5 minutes
There were a lot of things that I really, really liked about Sense, though:
- the toggle widgets, particularly one for data
- the notification badges for messages, emails, missed phone calls, etc.
- it's hard not to like the weather widget
- I always preferred the Sense dialer to stock Android's
As you may be able to tell, my experience with Sense goes back to eclair and cupcake. I decided to avoid an HTC handset when I upgraded not because of Sense, but for other reasons. If HTC made a phone that held a weak signal as well as Moto phones do, and had better battery life, I might have a Sense phone right now.