Does GPS ever just 'go bad'?

[ucfbeta92]

Note: I posted this on another thread which was primarily for Touch Diamond - should have actually posted it here since this is geared more towards TPs. (my apologies for double posting).

I've got a Sprint Touch Pro (CDMA of course), factory/stock ROM (v1.03.651.4; and I should point out that I've never modded my phone or used any custom ROM), and out of nowhere, yesterday my GPS started acting fishy. It seems very peculiar that so many people started having these issues the last day or two (I don't use the GPS every day, but I know for a fact that when I used it last week, I had no issues whatsoever).

At first, I wasn't sure what was causing the freeze / reboots (I thought the battery may be slipping / bad connectors), but then I noticed that it happened only when I used Google Maps / Bing.

I use Google Maps and Bing, and with Google Maps, it will find me on the GPS, but as I drive, it won't really "track" my movement. Eventually, it will just reboot. Ocassionally, it reboots before it actually finds me on the GPS.

I uninstalled Google Maps, cleared all related files, etc, and reinstalled it - same result.

Tried Bing, and it won't find me on GPS - eventually it just freezes, and I need to reboot.

I've soft reset the device multiple times to no avail - I haven't hard reset it yet, but I may just try that (hate to have to reinstall all my apps).

I'm going to try downloading a new ROM version that HTC's US website has for the Sprint TP devices (2.01.651.6; ROM date is 7/27/09, release date on HTC US website is 9/25/09).

The most interesting thing about this issue is that it seems to have affected Touch Pros / Touch Diamonds from various carriers, and all around the same time - just all of a sudden, all these devices go haywire! This has got to be more than a coincidence.