It really seems like Samsung has a bad rep with GPS. You heard things like:
I'm gonna get the SGS2 but I hope it doesn't have a bad GPS like the SGS!
And look what we have here, we got a perfectly functioning GPS on it.
Yet you don't hear things like:
I'm gonna get the HTC Holiday but I hope it doesn't have a bad GPS like the Inspire!
And the Holiday will most likely have good GPS as bad GPSes aren't much of a common problem for high end phones.
The point is that I wouldn't base my judgement of a phone off the older version because, well, that's why they make a newer version in the first place: to improve on issues that the last generation had.