the interest in smartphones has been dwindling for a long time now. Just because you need one doesn't mean that the majority needs one. There will no longer be a large amount of keyboarded phones in the market place because there is no demand for them. Business are not around to give you a choice, they exist to turn a profit.

The Droid 4 is still the leader of the pack when it comes to keyboarded phones, the Stratosphere 2 will not impress anybody. its a cheap to make phone that will fill a niche.

Market tendencies are going to phablet designs. I've had my hands on LG's phablet, Samsungs new phablet and HTC's new phablet and they are all cutting edge peices of technology. I can honestly say that not once did the desire for a physical keyboard cross my mind when i was checking these devices out.