The touch screen isn't responding very well, sometimes it will react to a tap but mostly the screen is non responsive, the keys work ok when scrolling on a menu screen. any ideas?

I find this happens to me sometimes as well.
The screens are capacitive touch sensitive which means it responds to the small amount of electricity on your skin. If your fingers are damp, from sweat, high humidity, then the capacitance will not reach a level for the screen to react to.
Keep your fingers dry and keep the screen very clean and free of oils.

I've similar question. My ipod touch 2 screen is very finicky! It sometime responds just fine, but other times requires multiple taps before it does it's duty. Is there a fix for this? I have tried soft resets and recalibrating. The recalibration works fine, but I don't think it should have to be done daily which is about what I'm doing now. Is there another more permanent fix for this problem?

Take the protective cover back off then try resetting it if needed. If the cover is not the right size or isn;t on in the right place it will do this. Usually it will just be one corner that gets stuck under the frame edge and then the digitizer pad thinks that you are holding down the stylus there and locks up after a while. Or it flips pages and so on.

Touch Screen Settings
1. Tap Menu , Settings , then Touch Settings to
adjust the touch screen’s sound and vibration.
2. If the touch screen is not responding as you expect,
calibrate the screen for touch accuracy.

If this does not work the phone has a restore feature, but you would have to back up everything you put on the phone so you don't lose it.

In the menu there is a master reset.

If this does not work contact the company and see how to send in for repair.

There is no software update for this phone at the moment.

Calibrate it on the setting menu. if it don't work, then go see a technical specialist

Does it have an after market plastic cover? If so they sometimes touch one part of the screen making it non responsive. On a day it does work try recalibrating the screen.

I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM HAPPENING TO MY PHONE. IT SEEMS LIKE THE TOUCHSCREEN WORKS WHEN IT WANTS TO. I DON'T HAVE A PERMANENT SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM, HOWEVER I'VE FOUND THAT TAKING YOUR FINGERNAIL AND RUNNING IT ALONGSIDE THE EDGE OF THE TOUCHSCREEN WILL USUALLY GET IT TO WORK AGAIN, AS IF THE TOUCHSCREEN GETS PUSHED DOWN TO HARD ON THE SENSORS AND GETS STUCK SOMETIMES. **NOTE**--SOMETIMES YOU MAY HAVE TO RUN YOUR FINGERNAIL AROUND IT A FEW TIMES BEFORE IT FINALLY FREES IT. BUT SO FAR, I'VE BEEN ABLE TO GET IT BACK TO WORKING PROPERLY EVERYTIME I DO THAT.. HOPE THIS HELPS!!

PDAs that use touch screens have a very thin membrane over the screen itself that responds to pressure. If this membrane becomes damaged, which it sounds like what has happened, then you're more than likely going to need to have it replaced. You can try doing it yourself, but it's WAY up on the difficulty factor because of the complexity of the connection to the circuit board on the Vx.
To determine if your unit is, in fact, actually damaged, you should first make sure that you've syncronized the unit (which may not be possible if you don't have it set to automatically activate HotSync when the device is attached) then do a "hard reset" to restore it to the factory default. To do this, hold the reset button while simultaneously holding the power button for, at least, three seconds. You will get a message asking you to press up on the control pad to reset to factory defaults. Once the unit is reset, try the screen again... touching even the outer areas to see if there's any response. If it reacts, or beeps at all, then it may be an issue of recalibrating (using the "Digitizer") once it's fully reset. If not, it will need repair/replacement.

reset the system

Low or flat battery. Connect to mains charger and fully charge.