It's an easy 'form over function' or 'function over form' for each new buyer.

I'm in the 'form over function' camp.
Reasons:
1) HTC releases like 6 new models every year. Specs upgrade is the norm. Desire will be superseded and get an upgrade model anyways.
2) Among all available HTC models so far, Legend casing is very nice. HTC Hero casing, it's predecessor, was plastic.
3) Legend is fast enough for today's use. It's likely that in 2 years time, I'll change another phone. It happened to my HTC Tytn2.