...maybe you could give it some preferences also, like being able to associate sounds to the button pushes like an old typewriter or haptic feedback so the phone sort of vibrates with the key pushes or just to be able to turn this off altogether.

I also agree that this shouldn't pull up if the slider keyboard is opened, but there should be a way to bring it up if need be even if it is open. Maybe a hotkey on the slider keyboard either by default or user defined.

The more that you could make the keyboard look like the one on the pre now, the better. Instead of the plain grey boxes with red letters. Just a thought.