IMO what it comes down to is Sprint sees the success of the iPhone and other media based phones and wants to pull as much weight with the Instinct as it can get. When Diamond and Touch Pro come out you'll see advertisements everywhere for them (tho I don't see very many tv commercials for the Instinct...only print ads
go figure). Verizon released their Touch and it didn't make any noise at all. Every phone has its target audience....the Instinct and Diamond are geared towards those who are media hungry and the Touch Pro and Mogul are geared to those who are business oriented (even tho I used to use mine for music as well).
Bottom line...No Cold War...people who use HTC phones will more than likely stay with HTC phones.