It's no more then a 30% hit when running purely on a UMTS network. Otherwise we're talking like 10-20%.
That is with Japanese hardware and 6 years of 3G experience—but Apple should be able to match that. Not the end of the world I think we'd all agree.
The more likely reason is simply that AT&T's 3G coverage is weak, and so Apple saved a few bucks and bought 6 months worth of development time on 3G chipsets[1].
[1]This is important because there are 3 worldwide UMTS bands, and current tri-band chips are much bigger/costlier then the more common dual band (North America) or single band (rest of the world) chips. I imagine Apple would prefer to use a tri-band chip and keep a single iPhone model instead of World and NA versions.
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