We upgrade our phones every other year. iPhone 4's were our first. We were excited but new to the Apple ecosystem at the time, we only had MacBooks and iPods. We switched carriers so we walked out of an AT&T store with the phones a few months after release.
We upgraded to the 5's and I honestly don't even remember if we did it online or at the store. With the 6's I was the most excited. While the 4's and 5's were nice additions to the ecosystem, I just found them too small to spend any significant amount of time on them. I was very happy when the Plus's were announced and I recall following the AT&T thread for the first time on here. Once I realized the huge demand, I accepted it would be several weeks til mine shipped and I was ok with that. But I remember about 4 or 5 individuals posted many times a day, encouraging each other and posting so many updates. I continued following the thread well after I got my phone until those individuals got their phones and stopped posting about it. Truly entertaining posts just about a phone, it was almost like a support group. When we upgraded to the 7 Plus's, I don't think I even came on here but this time find myself scrolling to through almost 700 posts lol