The overall functionality I have to say is decent...the only issue I consistently need to do battery pulls for is if I try to "reboot" it. It freezes on the Verizon screen EVERY time it loads up. Then sometimes I have to do a battery pull once or twice more due to a memory card error. Thats whats most frustrating.......has anyone heard any reliable info about a newer (more stable) OS on the horizon?
I'm ok with .85 as well and acutally hope that the next official OS would be something higher in version number (.9x or higher), indicating that they might've fixed some of the bugs in previous versions of the OS can may have added some additional new features that we wanted.
One can only hope, I guess...
For now I try to reset the phone once a week just to keep things smooth...
Just got a 523 BUT it's been well over a week, since I wipe and reinstalled .85. One 523 in over a week, I can live with that. Hopefully I'll soon be on .86 or .87, but if not I'm happy with .85
with 85 i can usually not go more then a few hours until i have to battery pull due to BBM freezing
wow that's pretty bad. Might want to go back to .76 if it's more stable for you. I do a lot of BBMing on my Storm and have not had it crash on me yet (on .76, .83, nor .85)
.86 just got leaked... maybe you can give it a try as well.
BUT it's been well over a week, since I wipe and reinstalled .85. One 523 in over a week, I can live with that. 
Hopefully I'll soon be on .86 or .87, but if not I'm happy with .85