I don't think they have ditched the idea. You can still see those molded in separators around the sides. I am on a good carrier, so I have never had problems with the 4 antenna design, even though I can get the bars to go down by "holding it wrong".

I like the idea of the body serving the roles of the case, the antenna and providing structural support. So hopefully this is version 3 which fixes all the problems they had.