How is the Titan design unique? it's a Desire HD and thus an Inspire 4G with a slightly larger screen and a FFC. Most of HTCs phones look the same.
I love how everyone bags on the Samsung phones for the plastic construction, blissfully unaware that plastic flexes on impact and thus protects the internal components better. It also doesn't dent like Aluminum or shatter like glass.
I would rather have a lighter plastic phone than a heavy aluminum one in my pocket. I had the Inspire and I couldn't do anything on that phone one-handed without fumbling it. And I could always feel it in my pocket, tugging on my belt.
The Titan is better than the Inspire in pretty much every way, but the Focus S is actually worse than the Galaxy S II in some ways. That's one reason why the Titan got more hype.
1) The obvious. The Titan's screen is a lot bigger than the Inspire's.
2) The Titan's screen has better black levels and better viewing angles than the Inspire's.
3) The Titan, despite its much larger screen, is thinner and lighter, yes lighter, than the Inspire.
4) The camera on the Titan is miles better than the one on the Inspire.
5) The speaker on the Titan is miles better than the one on the Inspire, which was atrocious by the way.
6) The Titan's processor is clocked 500MHz higher than the Inspire's.
7) The Titan gets better battery life than the Inspire.
8) The Titan has a front facing camera.
So yeah, the Titan is not just an Inspire running WP7. I should know, I've owned both. Please don't disgrace it like that again. As for the similar looks... well that's just the HTC trademark design. Many people like it.
Also, I think the reason not many sites took notice of the Focus S is because Samsung didn't push it or launch it internationally. HTC threw a huge Titan launch party, sent phones to all of the review sites, and launched the phone worldwide. Samsung quietly launched the Focus S as an AT&T exclusive as far as I know.