Well think of it this way.. Your phone and mine both have a "Lock" button on the top left of the phone, and a "Mute" button on the top right of the phone. With the new phone, they just made it so the "Lock" button was the only one on top to make it look cleaner and threw the other one in the middle of the rocker buttons.
As for using a 3rd party app or w.e to change what the middle rocker "Mute" button does... I mean can you currently change your "Mute" key on the top of your phone to do something like load up QuickLaunch or the Camera or anything? Not that I know of, so chances are you wont be able to sadly.
I very rarely use my mute key on my Bold 9650, and I love my left side convenience key. I use my left for QuickLaunch and my right for the camera. I am one of those people that are sad to see the convenience key go because the one that is on the Bold 99xx is in kind of a low awkward spot it seems whereas the left convenience key on my Bold 9650 is in the perfect spot.
All I know is that I guess we will get used to it, we are kinda forced to and all so :p But I would love to be able to reassign that middle mute button to be something else like QuickLaunch and keep the bottom camera or some other combination. :/
I agree with it not being a dealbreaker, but it is somewhat of a bummer. As for having the left convenience key set "contacts" or "BBM", what is wrong with just pressing the "N" button on the homescreen to get to BBM and the "A" button on the homescreen to get to contacts? The only time that becomes problematic is when you are actually in an app or on the web or something, and that can simply be solved by making it so QuickLaunch is the left convenience key and the same rules apply for the shortcuts on the homescreen keyboard. i.g. left convenience key then pressing "N" brings up BBM and same thing but pressing "A" brings up your contacts, but it works at all times over any app you are in or browser or w.e.
Just some food for thought, I am one of those people that try to make my phone as convenient as possible, and QuickLaunch has enabled me to do so with only one convenience key. Those who are complaining about losing their camera button, you can make QuickLaunch bring up the camera if you press the button twice or some other combination like that. I mean how simple is that? You get to keep your camera button key AND it doubles as a shortcut to EVERYTHING you will ever need on your phone.
I probably sound like an employee of QuickLaunch or something, but I am just an avid user and if it weren't for that app, I would be genuinely pissed about losing a convenience key, whereas now I am just slightly flustered :p
Those of you who don't have QuickLaunch and have a BlackBerry.. No offense, but you are NUTS! haha I actually bought ShortcutMe and used that for a while until buying Quick Launch and god.. I am happy I made the jump.