[bugmeknot]

The way I understand it, you can only get a different (more-modern) phone as a replacement if your current phone isn't available from either Sprint's inventory or the insurance company's inventory. Things have changed over the last couple years, but you used to be able to do this by just asking a store rep to call you as soon as they "ran out" of refurbed or replacements models, at which point they would have to give you the next-best model up.

However, I'm not sure if this works anymore. I mean, they still have to give you a newer phone if they don't have yours in stock anymore, but if you can find a nice store rep, you might want to ask him/her if you can file a defective PARTS claim (not lost or stolen) when they *conveniently* don't have access to your particular model. That's the way it used to work; sometimes you'd have to wait a month or so until your local store (or surrounding stores) ran out of your model, even refurbed, at which point they'd have to give you a newer equivalent.

Like I said though, things have changed over the last year or so; I'm not sure if this is still possible.

Another suggestion might be to buy a BROKEN Touch Pro or Palm Pre from eBay for 50 bucks or whatever, register it as your new phone with Sprint, then file an insurance or defective parts claim; they would replace the broken phone you bought off eBay with a working model. Again though, these are "old tricks" and I'm not sure if they work anymore.