As somebody with big sweaty clumsy fingers, I actually liked mobile phones and software for them (J2ME) before touchscreens.

Those keyboards were hard to use, but understandably so due to size.

But why did they replace them with something even harder to use, even when at home sitting in a chair, I can't fathom.

I think the best mobile device I've seen is PSP Slim, if we imagine a similar phone, buttons on the right could probably be replaced with a phone-like numpad fit for text input, the arrows and the joystick were perfect.