I've been told by my friends that they really don't know a release date. There were some major issues that kept it from coming out earlier (I think they were hoping May/June)

Their biggest issue was heat generation (some got so warm you couldnt hold it for a long period of time, and also battery life.

I've heard both of those got fixed, although aparently the device still gets a little warm.

I'm assuming that they were maybe hoping to release the 9000 with the launch of 4.5.

I don't see the 9000 as a competitor to the iPhone... I mean hell the Curve 8320 does what an iPhone does for the most part. And I am told that touch screens are in the very early stages, they've only recently started prototyping devices for that.