I completely agree. A friend uses Canvas HD and it's amazingly good for this price. I had once used it for some hours and it seemed nothing less than a high end Android phone. I'll add to what Friend863 said, the camera is pretty good too. The pictures are good enough to even view on a 1080p full HD TV. What else does one need at this price?
Performances wise also this phone is pretty good. Yes, you may sometimes face some minor issues but they don't affect the overall usability of the phone much.
And yes, in my opinion if one doesn't really worry or care about the brand then the Canvas HD is certainly miles ahead than the Galaxy Grand.
The only thing which lacks in Micromax devices is that the chances of future upgrades are less. Meaning, it's unlikely that the Canvas HD may get 4.2 or the rumored 4.3 officially, but the Galaxy Grand mostly will. But the brighter side is that you can always root your phone and install custom ROMs if available, so this point shouldn't really affect the decision.
But Canvas 2 recently got the Jellybean upgrade, which clearly indicates that Micromax is slowly working towards providing periodic updates too.