Please Help! Ready to throw my iPhone out the window!

Question

First time posting on the forums but it's gotten to the point where my phone isn't even usable and I either need some answers or a good excuse to smash it.
So here's the story:
I got my iPhone 3G (black, 16GB) in September (I think), last year. The phone operated fine with only minor annoyances as software updates came down to fix issues, no big deal. About 10 months in, the phone starts acting up:
If you want clarification on some problem, ask. I don’t want to type out 8 paragraphs if I don’t have to, should be pretty self-explanatory.
Before OS 3:
1.) Can’t slide to answer calls. After ringing stops phone behaves normally.
2.) Doesn’t charge from wall or computer (happened randomly). Plug phone in, it says it’s charging but never charges.
3.) Can’t end calls / call doesn’t end when other line is hung up (thanks for wasting my minutes).
(these problems persist even with hard resets and full restores, including setting the phone up as a new phone rather than restoring from a backup)
After OS 3 AND full restore:
1.) Can’t slide to answer calls. After ringing stops phone behaves normally.
2.) Can’t end calls / call doesn’t end when other line is hung up (thanks for wasting my minutes).
(same as above, problems persist with hard resets and the like)
At any rate, I was home one weekend and figured I’d take the phone to the Genius bar at the Mayfair Mall Apple Store. Sounded like a good plan until I get to the mall and find the store is being renovated (seriously Apple, you can’t just put that on your site that a store is closed for some reason? Give me a break). Home is 3 hours away for me and the closest Apple store is 2.5 hours away. Awesome.
I deal with the problems for another month or so until my girlfriend and I take a trip to visit her friend in Minnesota. While there we go to the Mall of America so I decide to go to the Apple Store there (which is flappin’ giant, by the way). I explain my problems to the ‘Genius’ as well as informing him of the numerous restores/resets I’ve done both before and after the 3.0 update. He checks the phone for water damage and concludes that the headphone/dock ports are dusty which is causing the charging problem. I proceed to tell him I’ve cleaned them with compressed air before and the problems continued but he’s the ‘Genius’ so I let him do his thing and clean them again. Afterwards, he concludes (via the iPhone diagnostic software they have) that since I haven’t done a restore in about a month that I should do another one as that will likely remedy the problem. Right. Was he even listening when I explained that the problems happened before and after the 3.0 update or that I had on numerous occasions attempted to remedy the problem with hard resets and restores? Nope. My girlfriend over hears this (she is aware of the problems I was having and is a Apple-certified hardware technician at our local Mac store) and comes over to reiterate (albeit slightly more forcefully than I had initially) that the problems occur regardless of restore state or software version. The ‘Genius’ finally decides he can replace the phone after explaining to him that we are not anywhere near an Apple store and that there’s little time left in the warranty. I get my new phone set up and ready to go. Whew.
Everything is great. Phone works, no issues. Until ~2 months ago, new issues start cropping up.
OS 3.1+ (happen on all versions):
1.) Can’t sync, get “unable to complete. Phone was disconnected.” Error. (I checked around the forums and tried a few things but was unable to resolve the issue, including trying to remove the files that it kept ‘disconnecting’ on when it got to, no effect)
2.) Installing an application (be it via App Store on the phone or via sync with my desktop) results in the phone being unable to boot if turned off. When attempting to turn it back on, Apple logo shows then phone goes off after a few seconds. Only way to resolve this is by booting the phone directly to restore mode and doing a full restore.
3.) Earlier this week, my phone wouldn’t boot after having no apps (0, zero, zip, nada) on it after restoring it a few weeks back. Apple logo showed up then the spinning loading animation overlaid on the logo only to freeze. Attempted booting again and it came on (whew).
4.) Today, my phone wouldn’t boot at all, again, no apps are on or have been on the phone since I last restored it. Tried turning it off/on a few times, no good. I ended up restoring the phone again.
At first, my girlfriend was convinced that it was because I was synching with my desktop PC (obviously, blame it on the PC first), which I’ve been using since I got the phone and everything was fine until both phones randomly decided to crap out. I ended up restoring it on my MacBook Pro as a new phone just to see but the same thing happens with the apps causing it to not boot. After that we thought that it might be a single (or a few) apps that were just taking the phone down for some reason. I restored the phone with no apps and it seemed to be ok so I put 3 apps that I’ve had pretty much since they were available (and used to work without issue) back on to see. The plan was to add a few apps until the phone stopped working properly to narrow down the offending app. Just kidding! Just having those 3 apps (Beejive IM, Facebook, iDracula) causes the phone to not boot. I restore and try just Facebook. Same thing, phone doesn’t boot. Restore, try just Beejive. Same thing, phone won’t boot. By the way, the phone doesn’t boot even without me having LAUNCHED THE APPS AT ALL. Just by being on my phone it’s totally hosed.
At this point I have no idea what to do. I want to like my iPhone again but it’s terribly worthless when I have to restore it every other day and can’t use my ~$90 worth of apps (PS: even Apple’s own ‘Remote’ app brings the phone down). I really, really hate to say it but my old HTC Hermes (Windows Mobile 5/6) PDA phone was better than this (and WinMo is god-awful).
Does anyone have any suggestions? My phone is out of warranty now and I don’t have money to buy another phone even if I wanted to.
Also, I treat my phone like a baby. It hasn't been dropped a single time, been near water, or operated outside of the safe operating temp guidlines.
I'm willing to elaborate on any of the information I provided above, just let me know.
Message was edited by: xxjudgmentxx

Answer 1

After the restore did the phone work properly for a while? Say, a day or so?
If so it is possible you have an app that doesn't let go of memory properly. I reboot my iPhone ( hold sleep/wake and hole till you see the apple logo) every few days. This resets the memory. The iPhone OS has doesn't seem to mange memory very well yet. So a reboot will help with that. I have had my phone almost slow to a stop before I started rebooting. Always reboot after installing a new app. Also do you close all pages in Safari when you are done? This is a good practice. Safari will run in the background and use processor time and drain your battery quicker. Create a new blank page then close all others when you are done browsing for a while. I have also found that certain web site that have animated images like weather maps will turn the phone into molasses. As soon as i close that page it gets faster.
If all of the above have no effect then as Tamara said it is time for a trip to the Genius bar.
Good luck