Sometimes I find myself turning 4G off because the 3G reception is better in crowded or remote areas.

The number of users hasn't really gone up since 3G. By that point in the US basically everyone had a cell phone. So your point is more like increased data usage across the board. And sure that's a decent argument why carriers want to deprecate old protocols, although I think carriers being allowed to deprecate what was effectively a single generation old was a travesty.

I'm just saying as far as service level and amount of data on plans, I personally was content with 3G levels. There's so much advertising pushing us into churning for technolust incrementalist spec-chasing, that I find completely uncompelling as what really defines my devices' capabilities is software freedom.