@jhaile is curious. I am too. My best guess is there'll be a firmware update that makes things much better. The issue will not be eliminated entirely but I think it will improved to the point of being effectively unnoticeable. I think software has a lot to do with it. I'm not talking about changing how the "bar gauge" works, either. I read someplace (location escapes me) that iPhone 4 runs entirely different software for its radio/baseband stuff. This would explain some initial quirks.

Edit: Before anyone says it: it's obvious that there's a hardware issue in play as well (signal attenuation when shorting the two antennae) but I think Apple will find some way to improve the performance dramatically. Such a fix could come at the expense of battery life.