IOS 7 and the 'greyed out' WiFi problem

Hi,
Looking for any solutions to this:
I upgraded to iOS 7 with no problems initially
After about 24-36 hrs I noticed I could no longer access websites via the WiFi connection, so I restarted the phone (a 4S on the Bell Canada network).
Since then, the WiFi slider has been greyed out and I can't access WiFi networks - with the exception of about an hour or two coincidentally around the time of the 7.0.2 release.
The WiFi button on the control centre appears to work, but of course doesn't actually function as designed.
So far I've tried the following:
Power on & off
Reset the phone (home & power buttons until Apple logo shows)
Reset network settings
Various versions of having the phone in or not-in airplane mode while doing the above
Renaming the phone without appostrophies.
Reinstalling iTunes & re sync
Upgrading to 7.0.2
Completely wiping the phone and reinstalling everything  from iTunes (painful, I know)
Going into the store that sold me the phone (I won't say here, but they weren't very nice about Apple)
None of the above have worked.
Some reading suggests it could be the phone's chipset, but I'd argue that as it's connected to WiFi just fine a couple if times.
The only idea I've read and not yet got round to trying involves freezing the handset.
Anyone else with any other ideas?
Thanks!

Tony,
I've been reading up on this 4S wifi greyed out topic for the past several days too. I have a 5 and I don't have the wifi greyed out problem (knock on wood).
There's been quite a huge volume of discussion on this issue, with some people suggesting that there is a hardware defect, while others finding it just too coincidental that so many people would have this same problem on the same occassion, ie upgrade to iOS7 or 7.0.1 or 7.0.2.
The strangest thing about this: there's a user, carolinelewis, who is on her second new replacement 4S from Apple but they still show wifi greyed out after a while!
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4638071?start=300&tstart=0
(page 21 of the thread).
Some people swear by the freezer method, some say the hot dryer method worked for them. Some say using either methods would get it fixed, some say the problem returns after some days.
My thoughts is that both freezer and hot dryer methods are actually taking the phone out of its operational temperature range.
Environmental requirements of 4S:
Operating temperature: 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C)
Nonoperating temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C)
Relative humidity: 5% to 95% noncondensing
This action may have cause the 4S to do a complete initialization when returned to normal temperature, but these 2 methods appear to be last ditch efforts.
What I'd favor is power cycling the 4S, which can be achieved by running it completely out of battery, as shown in this Youtube video: http://youtu.be/o_ws5srnVVM
then plug in power and just may work for you.
I've also come across this person's workaround: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzb5LNB9nIA
which may work for the 4S on iOS7 (it was posted for iOS6).
The steps this gentleman proposed appears to be worth a try. His strategy is to put the iphone into airplane mode, then do a hard reset.
Now, I have had my Thinkpad (Windows7) laptop's wifi freeze up akin to the behavior of 4S on iOS, ie can't turn on wifi radio via software, just simply refuses to see SSID of wifi router, won't join, etc. I've always been able to get things back to normal by power cycling the laptop. In some freak instances, even shutdown won't work, I would pull the battery out of the laptop to get eveything back to normal.
So my thoughts on this 4S wifi button grey out is that there is something in the iOS7 upgrade process that caused the wifi circuitry to freeze up and need a complete restart from powered down state.
The fact that the iphone doesn't have an easily removed battery makes it harder, and I suspect the freezer and dryer technics are an indirect way of acheiving total power off (battery not supplying power due to extreme high or low temperatures).
Furthermore, I've read that some people fixed their wifi greyed out problem by deleting older apps that may not be fully compatible with iOS7 and thus locking it up. Well, if that were true, then it may explain why the problem returns for some people. We won't know who upgraded which app.
And of course, there are instances where the wifi hardware that happen to be in a marginal state. Kind of like a PC working fine, installing updates, then stalling on reboot because the boot sector failed or some driver got stuck during initialization stage. This may explain why for some people the 4S had been working just fine but got broken wifi after the upgrade.
Best of luck to you in your efforts to get this problem fixed.

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