If this guy had TEP, and he claims he did, then there is no way they would not have swapped him on the spot, or attempted a repair on the spot.
Hell, even without TEP they repaired my 12 month old 6700 with a dead dpad (swapped the top half, got a new LCD too
) for $50.
I am afraid you may have triggered the "he's trying to get a free mogul or touch" flagged response when you initially called in/hit the store. Once in that bucket, Sprint will now try everything in their power to get rid of you, which it seems they've succeeded in doing.
Note, when I called Sprint when my dpad died, I said very very clearly "I love my 6700, I sure hope you guys can fix it, and I know I'll need to pay for it to get fixed..." I had an appointment to drop the phone off 5 minutes from my house in 30 minutes, and it was fixed 2 hours total time. Now that wasn't a Sunday, and I had no pressure to get out on a trip, and I know better then to go in guns drawn.
At this point you are screwed. You'd be better off leaving sprint and getting something new from verizon. Yeah, its that bad.
Edit - so you went on the business trip without a phone?