The issue was never that it was unusable if you were touching it anywhere. The iPhone 4 was my first iPhone. I used it for a year - before I was force to upgrade when I switched to Verizon (corporate discount) but my son used it when we switched back from Verizon and two years later, neither of us had a problem.

Besides the one specific case if you held the phone a certain way which was a universal problem, all cellphone reception varies from area to area.

> if you held the phone a certain way

Which coincidentally was exactly the way many people always hold phones. A relative had an iPhone 4 and constant connection issues which completely disappeared after she put some tape around the antenna.