My Verizon Tour is a disaster - how can I switch to Bold before my upgrade?

Question

For the last year, the Tour has been my living nightmare. I went through 4 different tours. Between bad track balls and poor reception, none of them have worked properly. 
The phone drops out all the time in my home. I live in a sunny apt. My fiancee's Iphone works fine...my old World Phone - which is too dilapidated to switch back to - worked fine. I seriously think it's the Tour phone.
I'm a freelancer going through tough times. It's additionally inconvenient that my Tour forces me outside my house to make and receive business calls in fear of the frequent call drop.
I don't have a ton of disposable income, so I've been sticking it out.  BUT  with this new Bold coming out, it looks like it could solve my problems if I could perhaps just try it... however, my upgrade doesn't come until 13 months after I bought the Tour... which is next August.  Two more months of running outside when I need to talk to someone important.
While it's true that I'd rather have a Verizon BB over an ATT Iphone, I'd rather an Iphone that works over a BB that doesn't. And I'm tempted to take advantage of the 99 dollar Iphones at Walmart.
Does anyone have any tips to help get me an earlier upgrade before Verizon loses me as a customer?  I really don't want to switch but I called Verizon, told them my situation - and they were polite but their solution was "wait it out for another two months." I guess they want me to complete my Tour penance.  It was kind of disheartening.

Answer 1

It reminds me of my Windows Vista experience.  I was humming along of Windows XP;  I made the mistake of going to Windows Vista, and then everything I took for granted turned into a customer service nightmare.  I hated being the complain-y guy, I'm the kind of guy who doesn't send back food in a restaurant unless the mistake is egregious.  Without quite intending to, customer service made me feel it would be better to start over with a new OS.
In this case, I'm also simply asking for the service to work again... and I think the early upgrade would be the best shot at doing the trick.  The parallel would would be if Microsoft had discounted Windows 7 after Vista had ruined my life. 
I suppose I could try going off data entirely.  Do you guys know a good phone that would be cheap?  The Verizon/Blackberry combo that worked so well a year ago is not really justifying it's 120 dollar a month price.  Like the Vista situation, without intending to - because the Verizon reps have been very polite - they're making me feel like they would prefer me to start over with another carrier.
Ugh.