Have you checked to see if Visual Voicemail and/or MMS still work? I'm in the same boat: I'm on AT&T and don't need the unlock but I want my signal bars back.
Had this problem myself. The solution (that worked for me) is to uninstall ultrasn0w. The power cycle the phone, reinstall ultrasn0w, power cycle the phone again. This caused visual voicemail and MMS to remain and the signal bar issue to be resolved.