I've not had any problems with the symbol button. I actually just cracked my front LCD yesterday somehow, after babying the phone since last Feb. (thank goodness for the insurance) - and got a replacement via UPS today. Both seem to perform the same. I just sometimes hit shift instead of symbol or vice versa.

The Get It Now system was down most of the day Nationwide today, so I had to wait until about 4:30 to add the Back-up Assistant to the new phone and get all my phone contacts onto my phone (I LOVE Verizon's Back-up Assistant, if you ever lose your phone, your contacts are all saved online and easily downloaded to a new phone).