I know there has been some dicussion about Verizon's 8700 coming out hopefully in the next few months, but has anyone heard anything about an Alltel version? I NEED the 8700, but they run so damn far behind...

I agree. I wish Alltel would try to be first with new handsets once in the histoy of the company.
That said, since I switched to Alltel from Cingular, I can find a place where my 7250 loses coverage.

New BB releases usually go as follows: 1. GSM 2. CDMA 3. iDEN

Its coming... Soooner or later qualcomm will finsih the CDMA chip set for the 8700 and it'll be off the testing blocks. I've got a fairly reliable source at Alltel who told me that.

What's a ballpark ETA?

Fall 06 sometime.