PUWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Friggin' genius.

@bec - no, there isn't a way to overcome the hold the phone, signal is lessened ordeal. But, I figured out three things.

I normally don't hold my phone when I'm talking. I toss it in a pocket and use both hands normally.
When I do hold the phone, I'm gaming or chatting. Only that last one is affected if I'm on 3G.
I still can't figure out why the heck it dropped in my jeans yesterday, but not the jeans today. Maybe I got a hole?

The owner of the iPhone 4 is a constant hole the phone while talking - a downright phone gripper. He's catching hell with it, started to emulate me and my iPhone 3GS, I just place on a table and answer via bluetooth and has had better results.

The iPhone 4 did pass this one "black hole" of coverage though whereas my iPhone 3GS always loses reception there. I will have to note that I was not gripping the phone at the same time.

As of yesterday, I didn't know about the lowering of impedance while making contact with metals. All of those years with antennas and I kept my hand on them while moving them around makes me mad that I lost tons of time trying to get good reception for my folks.

They owe me, dang it.