After several update attempts and failures, one of them put my iphone in near brick (DFU I think) mode - it booted but told me to connect to itunes - i tried varies ways of getting out of it with combinations of power/sleep/home buttons. No go. As near as I could tell - I HAD to restore my phone. After several attempts I got that to go through. Unfortunately some of my apps do not back up their data to the mac, and I have to reload media, but at least my phone works again. And it can't hurt to have a fresh reload once in a while, I guess. For awhile there I thought I'd have to go pick up a new phone, but alas in the end I got the old one working again. (the 4s may not be a huge upgrade, but it is better than the 4 . . .) Eventually I had to set it up as a "new phone" - too bad it is still the old one. Lesson learned, again, don't upgrade on first day - the potential aggravation is not worth it.
I understand the ease of use thing - but if apple servers cause the problem then ease of use is useless if the apple servers do not work. This makes me very nervous given the lion distribution channel.
I just hope apple is ready for iCloud
edit: I suspect they are ready to gather "social-personal" information. Like everybody else - aarg!