iPhone rant Apple charges you to call 'em

[junkinduck]

I purchased the iPhone last summer. It has always intermittently shut down when launching apps. I discussed this with an ATT representative and was led to believe that it was due to the fact that I was in a 3G fringe area. I have just lived with the inconvenience of having to reboot a couple of times a day thinking it was a network problem. I installed the new operating system 4.0 thinking this may help my problem. It has done the opposite. My phone will barely make calls much less do all of the things I have used it for in the past. Texting is hit and miss, apps do not work. Safari works less than not. I have tried to restore but the restore but it will not work. To make it function I had to reset back to factory settings but this has left me without my contacts, apps or music. At least the phone will work as a phone after the reset. I have tried all of the troubleshooting I could find on the Apple website. I have tried all USB ports on the computer as well resets. I understand that the phone is out of the warranty however I just thought my problems I have lived with for a year were quirks of the iPhone until installing 4.0.
Now i find that I have to pay 29.00 to apple for the pleasure of talking to one of there "genisus". I suspect that they will tell me to send them 200.00 and my phone. If I don't do this I will pay ATT for one year of data service I can not use.
My options are deal with apple. Buy overpriced used from fleabay. Nut up and live with the phone and hope I don't miss too many calls during one of the several reboots it takes during the day.

Any more sugustions?