Some mainstream news sources are going as far as calling the iPhone 3G a bad apple because of yesterday’s activation problems. Last year’s activation problems were much worse – many people didn’t have their iPhone activated for 24 hours or later. Yesterday, the servers seem to be back up before noon EDT. I doubt if many people had to wait more than an hour for activation. Once the stores realized the server was down, most of them sent people home to activate their iPhones instead of attempting it in store.
It's not Apple's fault.
"I doubt if many people had to wait more than an hour for activation"
Tru 80 hours… and counting.