In Messages, my phone number is in gray. Why cannot I be reached in iMessage using my phone number?

Done it. As I mentioned, I've done everything, short of resetting my phone to factory. Trust, this isn't my first iPhone, or song and dance with it. Imo, iOS 3.x.x was the best and most stable iOS ever. Sure it's more fancy now, more features, etc... but all for the sacrifice of reliability. I'm pretty sure that's all by design. A great way for quick turnovers of phones and iOS.

Thanks for your help though ckuan. I'm just going to get my phone replaced. I have Apple Care, so why try and fix something Apple broke, when I can just get a new one. ;-)

There's definitely something wrong with my phone or account. So right after I posted my last comment, a friend texted me (an iPhone user), I replied back and the bubble was green. He replied back. On my second reply the bubble was blue. And it's been blue in our text convo. So I decided to text my bro, and another friend. Like the first guy, my first text was green bubble, then blue after that. And it's stayed blue. It's as if my phone was purging all green bubbles to make room for blue ones.

I'm guessing something was/is wrong with the iMessage servers, and some accounts are being affected. Slowly but surely people are starting to be able to use them again.