Sprint HTC Hero :: Text Prediction

I recently bought a Hero to replace my BlackBerry Curve and it's a big improvement in most ways. I very much enjoy this device. One of the ways it's not an improvement, however, is this text prediction/replacement thing. I'm hoping I'm just using it wrong.

The Curve had a bunch of words set up (and the user could add more very easily if desired) such that typing "dont" followed by a space automatically changed it to "don't ". Very handy.

With the Hero's prediction turned on, "don't" is an option, but one of a few, so I have to actually tap it to replace what I typed, and then add a space afterwards. It's only a couple taps, I realize, but it happens all the time, and I thought the prediction was supposed to save taps and make things easier, and this "dictionary" the Hero adds to seems virtually useless.

I've also found that I'll type something and neither accept nor deny a suggested replacement, and it'll replace what I typed, sometimes with a rediculous word that even changed the first letter I typed! Very frustrating.

For now I've turned off the prediction option, but I like to type "properly" with punctuation and proper spelling, and adding apostrophes and other things isn't a quick process with this keyboard.