I was certainly not the only one: http://appletoolbox.com/2010/06/iphone-3g-slow-after-ios-4-0...
None of the suggestions worked.
I have a Motorola Atrix now.
Point being, all of the Android phones released around the original iPhone and iPhone 3G have most definitely been cut off. However, the Nexus One is newer than the 3GS, not to mention the benchmark model for that generation of Android device, and it has already been cut off.
This is separate from the 3G issue which was bad, but is in the past at this point. It's also arguable that even slow 3G users are better off than users of the same era stuck with Android 1.5/1.6. Hell, just throw ultrasn0w on your 3G and it becomes perfectly usable again.
iOS 4.2 improved some things and made it usable again, but the phone was still nowhere near as responsive as under iOS 3.1
On the other hand, rsheridan6 had bought a year-old design.
Well, yes, my previous 3G had been stolen, I needed a replacement right away, and I couldn't afford the premium for the 3GS right then. But if the 3G was intended to be obsolete less than a year after I bought it, it was a dick move to sell it with a 2 year contract. I don't think it's too much to ask that a phone not be obsolete before the contract runs out.
But I have learned my lesson. I'm only buying top-of-the-line from now on. I need to switch to Verizon because I moved to an area where they have the only decent network, and I'm holding out for the Rezound or Nexus Prime (Nov 10th).
But this also favors Android over the iPhone. New iPhones only come out every so often. Suppose your iPhone broke/got lost/got stolen at a time when the current iPhone is 8 months into its lifecycle. Your choices are to sign a 2 year contract for a phone that will be likely be obsolete before the contract runs out, pay an exorbitant cash price, go without a phone until the next release, or buy a cheap phone with no contract and wait for the next release. Or you could buy Android. There's always a latest and greatest Android phone that's not more than a month or so old.