It seems like the percentage of people who want a physical keyboard on their phones is good deal smaller than those who don't. So it makes sense to cater to the majority initially and then if that's successful to bring out a physical keyboard variant. There's no point in saying that you would have bought the Edge if only it had a physical keyboard. You are not the target market.

Why don't you make a HN poll and find out? Link the poll to here. Smartphones a) should b) should not have a physical keyboard Or something like that!