By advanced IM apps, I meant something that could get connectivity through Wimax or EVDO. As for getting them hooked, if you remember awhile back, kids were heavily into pagers. IM style communication integrated with GPS that they'd get with a music player (which they need anyhow) might create a similar trend with middle school kids.
Android wouldn't be necessary, but that would bring an open App development ecosystem with it, which would be great.
Pagers died out long ago here too. The point is: there was once a trend among youth where alternative cheap communications was used in place of the cell phone.
If that can happen once, it can happen again. And SMS price structure is bloated. Things are ripe for a change.