Stupid iPhone and iTunes united to create havok.  In an effort to upgrade to the 2.0.1 firmware I managed to get my iphone in a state where it thought it needed constant restoring.  Needless to say this frustrated me to no end.  The restores took 1-2 hours and accomplished nothing.  I found what seems to be a fix, becasue things are working now.  I basically ripped out the iPhones life line during a restore.  Here is a link to the forum with the fix, may it help someone else.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=5997941#post5997941