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Texting or emailing while you are in the presence of someone else is most rude (I can understand if you're on a bus or something where you are surrounded by people but not with them, but if you are in a meeting, at dinner or where ever with someone, then your attention should be on them, not on your phone.)

You've never been in one of my meetings. Most of the time, I'm sitting in a conference room listening to a conference call where two people are engaged in an argument. Yes, I know: it's not a productive use of time, but I don't have a choice.

What makes the Iphone 5S any better of a phone than any previous cell phone.

I posted a few examples in my first post: the new camera and flash are important to people that use it for photography and video. The new CPU and GPU is twice as fast, which means that both apps and the phone run faster or smoother. The different is reportedly noticeable from previous versions, but that doesn't mean the previous ones are unusable -- yet.

There's also a new low power chip that monitors accelerometer and gyroscopic sensors, so the main processor can go to sleep. That saves the battery, and enables apps that monitor physical activity.

Much has been said about the fingerprint sensor, but I don't find it to be that interesting. They have historically been easy to defeat, although this one may be a bit more resistant. However, I'm not even sure I'll use it.

The baseband chips support more LTE bands, which means the iPhone will support more LTE service world-wide. That may not mean much to you now, but at some point in the future it will translate into better phone calls, if your service provider ever supports VoLTE (Voice over LTE). It's still in the lab at the moment, but if they ever work out the issues (mostly with battery life), a voice call will have much higher fidelity.

Even if you include the secondary uses of it, how is it worth the extra money.

That's a judgement call for each person to make. However, the truth is: if your service provider is Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T, you are continuing to pay for a new phone, whether you want to or not. Once your contract ends, you continue to pay the same price (and a contract subsidy payment of about $20). You might as well get a new phone.

Of course if you are on T-Mobile or a pre-paid carrier, your monthly service cost doesn't include a contract subsidy. T-Mobile, Straight Talk, etc. offer to "finance" the phone over two years, but the payment ends after that.