Hot phone

Glad to hear that your Hero is working for you:) Let me offer my two cents. Use it if you want, ignore if you don't. Customization to one's personal preferences is priceless!

You can just do a "down swipe" on the keypad to close it when it comes up on the phone screen (same as you do to view Notifications). Also, instead of searching through your contacts, you can just start typing a name or number and a search of your contacts will be initiated. As you type, watch the list of contacts and they will change to match what you are typing. I find this way faster than search my contacts myself. Just start typing a first or last name and bam, there it is. Tap and you're dialing.