I was going to file an enhancement request on bugzilla, but first I wanted to get reaction from people here:

I think that the default behavior for the phone when I remove it from my ear should be to display the dialpad. Nine times out of ten, when I've been on the phone and moved it away for a second to look at it, it's because I need to enter my voicemail PIN, or go through some "select from the following option" hell, or answer a google voice call. Certainly, I want to be able to go back and do other things with my N900 while on the phone as well, but the default screen should be a dialpad.

But maybe I'm weird. Please vote in the poll, and if there's strong feelings in agreement, I'll file an enhancement request.

I hardly ever call people by typing digits... I call people by selecting them from the phone book on my mobile. So it seems the most obvious choice for me would be to say "change it and replace current list with contacts". - but then, I find most of the time I call the same people. Close friends, family. It's very likely they're in the list when I open the phone app... if not, I go to contacts.

So: leave it as it is.

When I remove it from my ear it should go back to the call-in progress.

Right now it doesn't.
Scenario: Call a number, use the keypad to enter a bunch of digits, put phone to ear.

When I want to end the call (take phone away from ear) I have to top outside of the keypad area and then end the call.

Would be nice if there was an option to default the screen to the call-in-progress screen anytime the phone was moved away from the ear.

I like it as is, just wish the Phone was part of the Status bar, so it was more accessible. And no to the keypad. But make a shortcut in the status bar when in an active call. With no dedicated phone buttons, phone calls suck, imo.

I have been using the dialpad a bit, it is not such a problem switch (at lease it is consistent with my Palm Centro. My problem is I cant hang up a call from the dial pad so I have left many calls hanging. I wish there was an end call button and a call button on the dial-pad.

Leaving off dedicated phone send and end keys wasn't ideal, in my opinion. I know its a computer, but still.