OMJ,
Which keyboard are you using on these two roms? I noticed last week when i flashed your 2.1 rom that is was using one of the ezinput keyboards that didn't have the "phone keypad". I use this keyboard for almost all my daily typing use as i'm very afluent with T9 in this layout. (the footprint is bigger for each key
which is why i like it)
In the roms i built yesterday, the only keyboard i found that actually installed this layout was the Touch HD Ezinput 1.5.32638.1 ... although i don't think i tried all of them in the kitchen. I know you used to be a touchpal guy back in the touch days but don't know what you are using these days... I'm guessing the full qwerty layout on one of the ezinput keyboards.
When i look in the packages for the other keyboards like the newer ezinput 2.xx i see that the P12 image files are in there but there is no way to select the "phone keypad" in the options when they are installed and I have no idea what's causing that? Maybe you can figure it out
because they are much better keyboars. I was running a version of one of them ported for my touch before i put it away.