I'll grant you that: texting will work on minimal signal, and in the absence of a proper data network ("3G," etc.). However, lack of "data coverage" but having "signal strength" doesn't make sense: if you have access to the signal, and you're subscribed for a data plan, and you have access to the 3G network, you have "data coverage." Whether the bandwidth available to you and your big city friends is anything remotely like our meager offerings on this edge of the world, well, who knows.

The majority use case for smart phones is in populated areas with relatively high bandwidth. And that use case would be much cheaper for consumers if they would be educated on the use of a separate and functionally improved message passing system. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but in capitalism, isn't competition supposed to be better?

And I think that if people thought to consider the value in having contents of texts available outside of your (easily lost, frequently broken, battery powered) mobile devices, they would consider it a valuable feature. Saying "if people wanted that they'd just email" is just wrong: email is a different context of message passing altogether, almost completely devoid of the concept of "instant" communication. Texting offers features that email doesn't, same as IM offers features that texting doesn't.