I think i'm a little slower only because i'm not used to it yet. If you asked me about a week ago a loved my pearl. I never used a standard BB keyboard so this was new to me at the time and i was slow.
My emails that i send aren't long, Mostly a few words, 3/4 sentences at the most and the ones i sent today didn't have too many errors. I'm trying to type slow and gradually building my pace up. The way i use the surepress screen is i don't put my finger on the screen and see if lights up then click. I just click making it like a real button and seems to work for me.
It will definitely take some time to get used to. I would try it out. Go to verizon and find out. Ask them to do a battery pull and leave it out for a few seconds so it resets. With everyone playing on it, it slows down the OS making in very annoying. You do have 30 days.
