My iPhone 3gs is shutting down and going into un-recovery mode?? : (

Question

Hi, its my first time on here, due to the fact that I have never ever had any problems with my iPhone 3gs.
Until 3 weeks ago.
It all started when my e-mail decided that it was going to be difficult. so I go to restart my iPhone and my screen lock/ power button does not respond at all. then the trouble ensues.. two days later, (after I ran the battery to nadda so it would turn off) and was fully charged, my phone cut out while I was sending a text. I was connected to wifi. the cell service bars were gone, and 3-5 seconds later my wifi disappeared also. at this point I was thinking dude? and the touch screen was still functioning. so I checked the network settings and my screen became unresponsive. my phone then went instantly to a black but still lit screen and then was off. my lock button still would not work so it wouldn't turn on with that, so I hit the home button and it showed a screen with a iTunes symbol and a USB cord, and a slide for emergency call bar. also there was a little quetion mark circle thing so I tapped it and a screen with two four letter acronyms and a number set for each showed up. long story shortened, I call apple and am on the phone with them for 5-6 hours over the next two weeks. they were of absolutely no use, and proceeded to lay into me about how I am using too much data.. and that my phone is probably not going to be fixable.
I get it to work by popping my sim card and restoring it then puting it back in and factory reset it with the sim card in it.
I get it working again and it is fine until last night. same exact thing. 
what can I do?? im lost.
Information that might help..
my phone has had around 200+(10-30) gigs run through cellular data (3G)
about 450 gigs total including wifi.  X (
has never been jailbroken, dropped, opened, water damage etc..
current i tunes/iphone updates.
windows 7
iTunes 64 bit
AT&T
will post more info if you want to help ..
THANK YOU!!!

Answer 1

If I was in your shoes, I would choose to restore the iPhone with iTunes and then choose to NOT restore a previous backup.  I'd then go on to set up the phone as though it were totally new, and choose the stuff to load onto it.
The reason I'd go through that trouble.. even though it meant losing a lot of settings and having to set stuff up again .. is because I wasn't sure I could trust the backup that it's restoring from.
If you have trouble again after doing the fresh reload -- especially if it's soon after you do it -- you may have a hardware issue with the phone, such as faulty flash memory or a processor chip that's failing. If that's the case, you'll want to consider your repair/replacement options at that point.