By your own stats it was 40% over a year ago, and you don't think they've creeped past 50% yet?

Nonsense. For stats, look at that Pew poll linked in the CNN article alongside this comment. For anecdotal evidence, look at the free/sub-$50 phones offered by all major carriers with a new contract. They are almost all smartphones. It's cheaper up front to get a smartphone now than the alternative.

Plenty of feature phones have qwerty keyboards, including the one I used up until a few months ago. They're not all T9. Anecdotally, many of my friends have feature phones with qwerty keyboards...