Thanks for the info everyone - I did an IOS 8.3 update back on June 1st, and everything was fine. Then I realized while monkeying with my phone about 1.5 weeks later that there was a "voice and data" option.
I wish I'd never done that.
Since then, I've done repeated restores, and on/offs for just about every setting, but to no avail: my phone will go from 5 bars to none to 2 to none to 5 ... you get the idea - except this is entirely within the same minute, in a place that I used to have perfect 5 bar service.
It makes sense that I accidentally enabled something with my carrier; it doesn't make sense that turning the feature back off means I'd still have the same problems... until I realized that it may be because it's now "enabled" on my verizon account and I can't even check without being punted to a different Verizon area I need to even register to get into (forget what it's called, but I have to sign up separately.)
Either way, I'll be stopping by the Verizon store tomorrow and the Apple store on Wednesday, and I might try one more full reset but not accept my "carrier update" and see what happens.
Regardless, this has been an absolutely horrible experience, and I hope Apple's working the problem too - because even if it is Verizon's fault, until I found this thread I'd seriously thought that my iPhone 6 would be my last Apple phone.