The iPhone was late to the 3G game as well. It then got a mid cycle refresh as the iPhone 3G and pissed off everyone who just bought the iPhone 3 non3G. I bet they mid cycle this mofo and piss people off again.
The progression of the iPhone looked like this....
iPhone (June 07) < iPhone 3g (July 08) < iPhone 3gs (June 09) < iPhone 4 (June 10)
Yes, the iPhone was late to the 3g party, but It wasn't a mid cycle refresh that brought 3g.
Yeah, that's my main issue and I use my phone enough on broadband that I'd like to have 4G. I'm not a big Apple guy, but I have an iPad 2 and like how it works so I'm interested in iPhone 5. But I also have an HTC Incredible and have always had HTC smartphones, so I wouldn't mind staying with HTC, especially with the specs that the Vigor (or whatever its called) looks to have.
Sounds like you have a pretty good idea what you are looking for. It just depends on if the iPhone 5 with no 4G LTE is better than whatever HTC can give you.
Personally, my next phone will need to have :
(1) Dual Core
(2) At least 960x540 if not 1280×720 screen resolution (preferably S AMOLED and 4.3 inches)
(3) NFC Payments
(4) LTE