About the keyboard thing....don't get rid of your stylus unless you plan to mod everything finger friendly..it's hardto txt without the stylus...and by the way, I was a really fast typer with physical txting and now i'm even faster with virtual...provided I use the stylus, but I lost mine, oh well.
I have used TouchPal for a few years and it works very well in portrait mode. The lack of landscape support is the only drawback that I have found. I have chubby fingers and I never use a stylus.