Philipp, do you mean you weren't "interested in using the G1 phone partly due to its hardware keyboard" – because of the latter's (assumed low) quality, or the very existence of it?

Due to its existence and my trying out a HTC/T-Mobile based phone with hardware keyboard before, and really disliking it. (Before I had bought that phone I figured the hardware keyboard might make typing really quick and easy but that phone was actually a usability pain for a variety of reasons...)

Yeah, G1 was a bummer by the looks of it. But that multi-script-language ASE looks very interesting to me... there is something exciting about being able to program one's phone to say "Woof!" right from the handset! And, with Javascript support on its way (I presume it will be compatible with the latest ECMAscript specifications, not only some Android-y variant of it), it suddenly sounds like a production-line tool, the kind that can be used while in transit etc. to optimize single JS routines.