I think it's odd that people think lowly employees have the inside scoop of the plans of the company. When I worked for an Apple reseller, customers would come in all the time asking me when the new models were coming out.
I agree with you. I work in a business that works with apple every day (just had meetings with them today) and they are HIGH execs at Apple. Even they don't know all the info, and if they do, they can't tell me anything, even though one of them is a very close friend of mine. I beg her for info all the time and most of the time she won't spill the beans even when I get her drunk. LOL. But much of the time, even with her exec level at Apple, she doesn't even know. I've been trying to get the date of the white iPhone out of her for months and the only thing she told me is why there is no white iPhone.
So if the people I know don't know, the employees at the Verizon, AT&T and Apple stores definitely don't know.