Had mine for two days now and already updated the OS to the latest leak
I went from the Curve to a Bold 9000 last year and never regretted it. The 9000 was the best phone on the planet. Now, the honour goes to teh new Bold 9700 (IMHO)
Personally I was very surprised at how small it feels in my hand compared to the 9000 but it is a very good feeling. This is obviously a personal opinion but it now slips very easily in my jeans front pocket while the 9000 was just a tad too bulky on the tighter pants.
Also, the weak vibration curse of the 9000 seems to be cured. The 9700 seems to vibrate much stronger which is very welcome for me.
The trackpad is amazingly smooth and intuitive. no problem switching from years of trackball use. I did turn down the sensitivity by 20% though since I found it a bit to quick.
My only complaint is that none of my themes came over from the 9000
Apparently (from some other threads) we have to wait for a new dev kit from RIM before all themes will work properly on the 9700. I was having some issues with the 9000 on OS 5 with themes as well but at least they would be ok until a battery pull.
All my applications are running Ok so far and everything is very quick feeling.
If anyone has specific questions fire them in here.