DX a brick? Hardly. It's thinner and lighter than the DROID. The only stipulation is that it is bigger (4.3" screen's worth), but it's hardly a brick. Honestly, I don't know what people's hang up with the DX's size. It's not THAT big, in fact, they're almost exactly the same size as the Fascinate. Unless, all the dudes that are complaining have small hands... well, if that's the case, uh... we'll just leave it at that.
The best phone that VZW has to offer are both of the Motorola phones. Both have blazing fast 1GHz OMAP processors (compared to the 1GHz Hummingbird in the Fascinate; see recent benchmarks). Both the Motorolas have more onboard ROM and RAM than the Fascinate. Both have more resolute screens than the Fascinate (remember, even though the Fascinate boasts 800x480, due to the PenTile substructure, it has considerably less pixels). The DROIDs have or will be getting 2.2 by October, while the Fascinate has yet to be determined.
In the Fascinate's favor though, it doesn't have a locked down bootloader, but that's about it at the moment. That isn't to say that the bootloader in the Motorola won't be cracked, but no news on it yet.