I've owned both and, in fact, I still own both. I bought the Intercept first and struggled with it for 6 months before finding a super good deal on a used OV. The difference between the OV and the Intercept is like night and day. The day that I activated the OV, the Intercept went into my bottom desk drawer and will probably remain there forever.
Yes, you can use Swype on the Intercept. All you have to do is install it. In fact, once I first discovered Swype, and got used to it, I never used the Intercepts physical keyboard again.
I still have the Intercept because I would consider it dishonest to attempt to sell it to someone else without fully disclosing all of the phones short comings and I simply don't have that much time.