My guess is that Verizon overplayed its hand, thinking wannabe iPhone customers would fall for anything. First, there was the long wait. Rumors of a Verizon iPhone seemed to surface every quarter for years, thus stringing iPhone hopefuls and AT&T bashers along. At some point, a backlash is inevitable.

Then Verizon chose to come out with an , after the 30-day return policy expired on phones bought during the holiday season. If a Verizon iPhone had come out in January, many Verizon customers might have returned their Christmas phones for iPhones, leaving Verizon stuck with crushing inventory. By coming out in February, Verizon appeared to be pulling a fast one on customers.

(Verizon did offer iPhone credit for returned phones in a convoluted special program: If you bought a Verizon phone between November 26, 2010 and January 10, 2011, you can receive a Visa debit card for up to $200 when purchasing an iPhone 4 at the full price of either $599 for the 16GB model or $699 for the 32GB model.)

My colleague, Al Sacco, correctly points out that the iPhone 4 has been around for almost eight months (albeit on AT&T's spotty network) yet costs the same today on Verizon. Even worse, the iPhone 5 is expected to come out this summer. These are just some of his .

"It would be a wise move for most folks to hold off on signing a two-year Verizon contract for the iPhone 4," Sacco writes. "The iPhone 5 will surely pack a variety of cool new features and functionality that'll leave many iPhone 4 users craving for more."