My original experience with digital was in the way of a Motorola digital flip - and it was a good experience - to the point I did not *want* to go back to analog ... (I was with a cellular carrier as we rolled out the initial digital service in this area).
The later Nokias weren't as pleasant - a good form-fitting phonce like a full size flip-phone makes a *big* difference. I don't like these candy-bar sized phones at all ...
As to 2-way going to 12.5 kHz channels - most VHF and UHF 2-way use by Mom and Pop user or business users around here us IDEN/Mextel. Makes a LOT more sense and provides greater coverage through a metropolitan area than a 100' tower and 100 watts on a VHF business band frequency in the 152 MHz area ...
(You're talking to a licensed ham and an FCC first-class license holder since '75 ...)
Still a lot of the older analog 800 MHz. trunks around here. And the state highway patrol still loves their low-band VHF towers. And as the munis move to 800, their old 400 repeaters are being adopted for other purposes. NBFM will be with us for a while.
But if you can't afford the equipment and license fees, Nextel is probably the way to go -- especially if you want to get away from the scanner listeners.