He's trying to setup shortcuts from the home screen. Whenever you push a number key on the home screen, it automatically takes you to the "phone screen" where you can type the rest of your number and place your call. He wants to be able to push a number and a folder or a different screen instead of the phone screen. I'm pretty sure you CAN NOT do that though...
I'm disappointed in that as well. I don't understand why they just can't make it an OPTION. They can set it to ON as the default, but why limit the users who want to turn it off?
/rant
Other than that, I'm absolutely in love with my Pearl.
When I asked RIM about this - on the day the 7100t came out 2+ years ago - I was told this was design since the small form factor is designed like a phone and not like a classic BlackBerry. Not sure anyone is going to "hear anything" since this is the way it's designed.