IPhone 4, iOS 6 update, and wifi - cannot browse WWW via DNS

Question

Apologies for the long post in advance. Hopefully it's exhaustive enough for Apple to take notice.
tl;dr:
updated iPhone 4 (VZW) to iOS 6 on home wi-fi. now phone will not browse to WWW on home wi-fi, EXCEPT WHEN BYPASSING DNS (ie, browsing by IP address). tried lots. no success
full events detail:
I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 6 yesterday evening (via iTunes on my Win 7 x64 PC). Upon completion, I ran into some trouble trying to sign in with my AppleID in order to restore from my iCloud backup. Suspecting that Apple's servers were just experiencing trouble (though nothing indicated iCloud was down), I skipped signing in and went about my day. The rest of my settings copied across from my computer. At that point, I slept on it.
The following morning (today), I noticed that I still could not sign in, but was off to work and did not have time to examine it further. At the office, all seemed well, and I used the phone with the updated OS largely without issue, including connecting to two new wifi networks. Returning home, however, I noticed that the behavior was the same as the previous evening, ie I could not connect to things like the App Store in order to install updates, the web to look for information, etc. Now having time to troubleshoot, I pressed forward with the investigation and immediately found a number of support community and web threads detailing wi-fi issues on devices after updating to iOS 6. I followed the steps I found, but I still have the same issue. Below is the list of things I've attempted, to the best of my ability to recollect.
1. forget network, rejoin - same symptoms
2. power off phone, power on - same symptoms
3. set wi-fi network HTTP proxy to Auto - same symptoms
3. forget network, power off wi-fi, power off cellular data, power on wi-fi, rejoin network (same symptoms), power on cellular data (same symptoms)
4. power off bluetooth (already done, no change), power on bluetooth - same symptoms
5. forget network, airplane mode on, power on wi-fi, rejoin network - same symptoms
6. clear cookies, cache, website data - same symptoms
7. try another browser (Opera) - same symptoms
8. try static IP on wi-fi network - same symptoms
9. forget network, power off router, turn off wi-fi, power off phone, power on phone, reset network settings, power on wi-fi, power on router (after 5+ mins), rejoin - same symptoms
10. restore phone to factory defaults (same symptoms) and restore from backup (same symptoms)
11. enable SSID broadcast on router - same symptoms
12. enable WMM on 802.1n router - already enabled, same symptoms
13. disable 40MHz channels on 802.1n router - same symptoms
14. set router to 802.1g operation - same symptoms
15. remove wireless security from wi-fi network - same symptoms
16. change SSID - same symptoms
17. update router firmware - no updates available, also, same router was working prior to update and continues to work without trouble with all other wi-fi devices in the house
18. try another router - already verified this works, but as a result of the particulars of this case, is not relevant as my home router is not at fault, so much as the update to iOS 6 is on my iPhone 4. as other routers work and as a factory restore did not resolve (prior to backup restoration), I also do not believe my iPhone 4 to be at fault, so much as the software update itself
Having exhausted all of those suggestions, I dug further. The phone was working without issue up until the moment it needed to reboot to apply the downloaded iOS 6 update. I initially encountered the incorrect password scenario during the post-update configuration, but after forgetting and setting up the wireless profile from scratch (from the iOS 6 setup wizard), it joined my wi-fi network. The phone DID pull an IP address from my router, and responded to pings from other devices on my network without issue. In addition, using the Safari browser to web to a local network device, such as my router, was successful, indicating that the wi-fi network was established and routing appropriately. All other devices on the network, wired or otherwise, were working without issue. I then attempted to trace traffic and found that none of my phone's web requests were reaching my router, except for those targeted at the LAN. I then tried browsing to an IP to ensure there was not a DNS issue, and my phone browsed successfully. I then tried another site by domain name and failed, and then its IP and was successful. I verified against my router's logs that the web requests were routing through it to ensure that my cellular data wasn't taking over, and the logs confirmed it. At that point, I tried changing DNS from my standard servers to another set, but the behavior remained the same. I then tried setting my router as the DNS server, but the issue remained.
In conclusion, it appears to be some sort of DNS issue specific to the update. I would also hazard a guess that this is impacting people on the networks where they downloaded the update and/or were connected when the phone actually updated. I've tried setting the profile to use local, ISP, and public DNS servers, but as the requests never reach my router, I am inclined to believe it's being restricted by a setting on the phone itself. Because the problem persists through a factory restore, it would seem to point to all data not being truly erased during that process. Recall that I'm having the same issue prior to a backup being restored to the device, and that this issue prevents iCloud from being accessed during the setup process while on the problematic wi-fi network, so that should rule out the backup playing any part in the trouble.
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

The OP is correct, I have done many tests.  With IOS6 there appears to be a dns issue in some cases with IOS for both ipad(2) at lease (my wife won't let me upgrade here v1) and the iPhone4s in my case.  Pretty easy to diagonse, I wish Apple would fix it.
1.) I use a Juniper 5GT wireless firewall and all of my other devices (many apple, ipad, MBP, iMAC,3 ipods etc) are fine: Not ipad2 or iphone4s running IOS6
2.) after upgrade nothing worked.  narrowed it down by messing with dns (I have my own dns server)
3.) Strange thing; dns works over MiFI (Verizon) and Carrier
4.) confirmed that it is a dns and not network issue.
-down load free tool called ping-scope-lite.   (obviously you need to turn off wifi to do this)
  http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ping-scope-lite/id431500107?mt=8
turn on wifi
- ping Level3 dns server 4.2.2.2 or Googlesdns servers 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4 these worked.
-now ping by name google.com or ipchicken.com
   - try others; same result.
Apple did say that they would give me another iphone 4s: I just wasn't sure that would fix my issue.  I tried downgrading to 5.1.1 but I got an error saying my device wasn't able to do so (tried even blocking itunes from contacting Apple)  I whis this could be fixed.  I did even have it working using my own dns server but now I can see that my phone over wifi isn't even trying to make a dns request now.
Stuck