I haven't read all the posts so I'm sorry if someone has already mentioned this. Gizmoto has posted an article about the person that "lost" this Iphone. It is claimed that the phone was lost on March 18th. I find it very interesting that 8 days later on March 26th Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt were spotted having coffee and it was reported that Jobs was overheard saying "They're going to see it all eventually so who cares how they get it. Let's go discuss this somewhere more private." Could they have been talking about the lost iPhone?
Gizmoto article http://gizmodo.com/5520438/how-apple-lost-the-next-iphone
Jobs & Schmidt http://www.tuaw.com/2010/03/26/steve-jobs-and-eric-schmidt-share-a-coffee/
Quoted for piecing together the information really well - would be awesome if what you've said is true, though I guess we'd never find that out.