As an aside on your aside, the reason AR&T calls failed is because everyone uses them. The former Cingular has the widest, non-drop call range in the Bay Area, plus roll over minutes. Since Sprint has far fewer users of course their calls didn't jam the circuits. That doesn't mean AT&T doesn't need to fix the problem but why it's there casts a different light on it.
And, fyi, I have a Blackberry.

If I had just locked in millions of new subs over the span of a few months with 2 year contracts on every one of them, I'd probably be in no hurry to upgrade my overloaded network either.
And don't get me started on California disasters again...

what I found interesting was my ATT phone could not connect to a local landline in ~20 attempts but connected to another ATT cell line the 1st try. Same thing happened to both of my dinner companions.