If you like to hold your phone differently than how Apple thinks you should, then too bad-- that's their only current-gen phone.
Or you can get their free case, which leaves it still thinner and arguably better looking than most other phones on the market.
The antenna problems illustrate why buying an iPhone is always a losing deal
That seems really hyperbolic... always a losing deal? Unless perhaps you assume that the portion of critical-problem-havers is 100%. In actuality, it's a tiny fraction. (And, of that tiny fraction in this particular case, the vast majority can be solved with the free case.) Could Apple someday be struck by the inability to make a good product, leaving users with no upgrade path? I guess so, but that doesn't keep me from buying what appears to be for me easily the best device on the market. If that ever changes, yeah, I'll have to find replacements for maybe $50 worth of apps. Not the end of the world -- it's not like I'm signing on me and the next few generations to Apple-only.
To start with, the free case is a very recent concession that was made in response to intense media pressure (whether deserved or not). Moreover, I didn't say that the antenna problem is a critical problem for all users, but I said it illustrates why for all users, it's a sucker deal. You are betting against Apple ever deciding that its one sanctioned upgrade path should go in a direction you don't like. You are gambling not that Apple will suddenly be unable to make good products, but that their design decisions will be different from your needs and desires. Moreover, there is likely a lot more investment in the platform than just $50 of apps.
As for "easily the best device on the market," that's only true if you are completely fine with a device that does only and exactly what Apple allows it to do, rather than a device that is, as computers throughout their entire history as successful consumer devices have been, designed to allow you to do what you want-- including create and innovate. Compare the approach of Google's App Inventor to the approach of Apple's monolithic and cryptographically signed dev chain, for one specific example of what I mean.
I understand what you're saying, but the vast majority of people who have iPhones (and the people who Apple is explicitly targeting with their product design and marketing), are completely fine with a device that "does only and exactly what Apple allows it to do".
So to say that "for all users it's a sucker's deal" is to ignore these millions and millions of people while making a statement about yourself and your tastes and desires. For you, apparently the iPhone's tradeoffs are unacceptable, and that's fine. I'm sympathetic with what you're saying: in theory, it sounds obvious that an open ecosystem where every device manufacturer can create whatever they want is going to lead to better hardware than Apple could ever compete with. In reality, that just could not be farther from the truth for a huge group of people: there's not another phone I like better than the iPhone 4, so I'm "stuck" with Apple — not because they have me locked in but because nobody else seems to make a phone whose particular tradeoffs are more in line with what I desire.
The antenna problems illustrate why buying an iPhone is always a losing deal
That seems really hyperbolic... always a losing deal? Unless perhaps you assume that the portion of critical-problem-havers is 100%. In actuality, it's a tiny fraction. (And, of that tiny fraction in this particular case, the vast majority can be solved with the free case.) Could Apple someday be struck by the inability to make a good product, leaving users with no upgrade path? I guess so, but that doesn't keep me from buying what appears to be for me easily the best device on the market. If that ever changes, yeah, I'll have to find replacements for maybe $50 worth of apps. Not the end of the world -- it's not like I'm signing on me and the next few generations to Apple-only.