Cell Phones: Features vs. Service

My current cell phone (Motorola V60c) has been on its last leg for quite some time now, and I really do need to replace it. Only for some reason I cannot seem to bring myself to spend the couple hundred dollars to buy a new one. It has just turned into one of those �things� if you know what I mean.
Meanwhile over the same period of time I have been needing to buy a new PDA. Christina is using my old Handspring which given the fact that I don�t particularly want to carry one worked out fine for me. I could buy a decent Palm for $199, but for some reason it is just one of those �things� for me, and I can�t bring myself to it.
Last night Christina and I went out to the Century City mall to spend some time out of the house together. We went to Tiffany�s to look at wedding rings, we went to this great watch store that carries Patek Philippe, and Jaeger LeCoultre (two of my favorites for when I can afford to spend $100K for my wrist). And we also went to the Palm Pilot store so I could look at my options.
[While I am on the subject I will digress for a minute. The Internet is a powerful thing with ecommerce a company can reach every person on the globe. But when it comes to a consumer shopping for something that they do not know a lot about, holding a thing in your hand is the ultimate shopping tool. Ecommerce companies know this, look at how Apple, Gateway, and Dell are scrambling to create actual storefronts. Anyways�]

There is a PDA that I want more than I could imagine. Actually it is a Handspring Treo 600 phone. It�s sleek, it�s sexy, and it�s a phone and a PDA built into one compact package. It kills two birds with one stone. It�s perfect� except it is not available on the Verizon network.
And there is my dilemma. Consumer reports reciently did a report on Cell Phone carriers and coverage. In a nutshell it said that if you are looking for new cell phone service you should use Verizon, and that the GSM networks that are still being built out have the expected dead zones of coverage. Something I wasn�t too surprised to hear given my personal experience switching from Verizon to Nextel for my then employer, to AT&T to AT&T GSM, and back to Verizon. Friends and co-workers of mine with AT&T/Cingular GSM have a whole slew of problems, and most have switched over to Verizon.
So here is the question. Do the features, functionality, and coolness of the phone outweigh the loss/lack of cell phone coverage that I will end up with? How does one truly make this decision?