Lets just hope they've actually fixed all the bugs that make my job so much harder (and yes, IE7 was still full of them). Speed aside, even if I don't use it, I only hope they've got their house in order so web applications can progress in their native form (i.e not Flash/Silverlight etc).

Not really, as the original iPhone was never subsidised (wheras in the UK, pretty much all phones are). So all the 1st Gen iPhone users paid full retail and o2 just sucked up the contract cash, so they stand to gain by letting you extend for another 18 months by giving you a subsidised phone that you would have otherwise got if you'd chosen a different handset.

What is good is that someone put the idea forward and they were intelligent enough not to reject the idea out of hand (as mobile carriers like to do).

The higher res screens have been available in the UK for a while (1440x900 and 1680x1050) but they've taken them off again for the moment, supposedly whilst they rectify their supply issues. You can still grab machines with them from the dell outlet though.