I hear stories like this about Sprint's customer service all of the time and it never ceases to boggle my mind. I've been doing business with Sprint for 7 years and I have never dealt with one person there who was anything less than professional, courteous, and overwhelmingly helpful. In most cases they have gone way beyond the call of duty to ensure that I'm satisfied.
In May of last year I upgraded from my Mogul to the Touch Pro. I was cool with the price, but the gentleman at the Sprint store processing my upgrade literally INSISTED on trying to get Sprint corporate to apply an addition credit to my account to help 'ease the pain'. He was unsuccessful....but he did talk them into waiving the monthly fee for my data plan....forever.
So I had the TP for a couple months, and in December the screen stopped registering when you touched it. Called Sprint and they overnighted me a new phone and a return envelope. Thought it was all good but the new phone would periodically freeze for a few seconds at a time before resuming. I called to ask for another replacement and was instantly transferred to advanced support. They didn't mess around at all....just told me I could choose any phone Sprint carried, regardless of price, and they would overnight it to me with no extra charges. Naturally I chose the TP2.
So now I have a TP2 with unlimited data that they give to me every month, gratis. This is a typical example of the kind of service I've ALWAYS received from Sprint.
It sucks you had to go through so much hassle to get a satisfactory outcome, but I'm glad you were able to get it taken care of. Hopefully they do better for you in the future!