[jaeskill]

I think that May 5th or May 12th will be the date of release. Somebody mentioned early in this thread that VZW announces phones on Tuesdays and releases them on the following Thursdays; it just happened with the Incredible 2. If the rep was telling the truth about the pre-order promotion and the release of the phone not being able to coincide, we will not hear anything about the phone on the 5th... if anything we will hear about it on the Tuesday before the release. If there is no news about the phone before the 5th, I wouldn't be surprised if the day we have all been waiting for goes by without any mention of it. Thursday is release day at VZW, not announcement day.
I may be wrong though... VZW has been handling MS like a cheap prostitute so who knows. Maybe they have a different release schedule for WP7 devices and will announce them on Thursdays and release them on Sundays or some stupid shit like that. Even the iPhone was released on a Thursday... im sticking to my original theory. Fingers crossed for an announcement on the 3rd.