You’re right.
1. iPhone 5 is not enough of a step up from iPhone 4 to make it desirable.
2. Phone company upgrade deals are on the 24 month contract schedule, making a 12 month new technology cycle self defeating.
3. Those of us in the boonies don’t get a signal strong enough to justify a large wireless expenditure every 12-18 months. If we don’t spend much time in town, it’s hard to justify anything more complex than a phone that’s just a phone.
Unless you want LTE, right?
The 4G LTE on the 5 is extremely fast. Much faster than the 3,4 and 4s.
We did a side by side test at work with all 4 devices with speedtest.net
In a 4G LTE area, the 5 does 24 Mbps down and 8 Mbps up.
The 4s was about 1/8th as fast at 4 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up.
The 3 was welll, 0.3 Mbps down... :(
Worth the upgrade for the speed increase - if you live in a 4G area. If still no 4G then you will not see a cnange.