Ben Brooks posts about the delicate nature of the the iPhone 5's polished edge.
I took a good look at mine to check to see the condition of mine — I guess I've been lucky so far.
With every iPhone that I've had aside from the 4S, a case would end up on the phone at one point during its duty. In each instance, I ended up taking off the case.
I'm the type of person that likes to live on the wild side with my phones. My phones always end up having dings and scratches. But according to the experience of others, it looks like my battle scars will end up showing up sooner.