Agree with everything you've written, but that's why I said it was an opinion as to how important this was.
At that point around 2007, that vast majority of time I was in range of WiFi: at home, at work, or at a place with public wifi like a coffee shop/library. Totally agree that the 2.5 G made everything super slow, but honestly, in retrospect, that almost seems like a feature vs a bug. I would only pull out my phone on a cell connection for very targeted actions, e.g. pulling up maps, looking for phone numbers or business hours of operation, sending/reading email (as email was a batch operation the slow connection didn't have too much on an impact), etc. Point being that since it was a "costly" endeavor, I would only use it for things I was really intentional about. Versus now, when I'll pull out my phone at the slightest twinge of boredom and scroll, scroll, scroll through HN, Facebook, etc.
At that point around 2007, that vast majority of time I was in range of WiFi: at home, at work, or at a place with public wifi like a coffee shop/library. Totally agree that the 2.5 G made everything super slow, but honestly, in retrospect, that almost seems like a feature vs a bug. I would only pull out my phone on a cell connection for very targeted actions, e.g. pulling up maps, looking for phone numbers or business hours of operation, sending/reading email (as email was a batch operation the slow connection didn't have too much on an impact), etc. Point being that since it was a "costly" endeavor, I would only use it for things I was really intentional about. Versus now, when I'll pull out my phone at the slightest twinge of boredom and scroll, scroll, scroll through HN, Facebook, etc.