PPCGeeks - Screen Alignment - Sudden, Wide Fluctuations

I am on a replacement ("certified new") Touch Pro 2 from Verizon. The first one had a defective "R" key which only responded perhaps half of the time.

This one has been excellent until now (although the keyboard has a more 'crinkly' sound/feel in many areas), but there have been some Screen Alignment issues. With the first one, I set it once, and never had to touch it again. With this one, over the few weeks I've had it, I've had to occasionally tweak it as it was off a little.

But starting last night, out of nowhere, it was way off - like 3/8" or so!! I've re-aligned, soft-reset, pulled the battery and reset, etc. One time I had to go through the alignment routine 3 times in a row before it would "accept" it and allow me to end.

I am on the stock ROM, and nothing had been recently installed when this started occurring. I updated Skyfire to the new version, but it was fine for half a day or so before this occurred. No major system tweaks, other than few Regedit and Opera.ini modifications. No shells or UI replacements.

Am I correct to assume that this is a hardware issue? Just now, it became way off again, but then "self-corrected" and it's ok without me doing anything. I'm about to call Verizon, and try to demand an actual "new" one, but wanted to make sure I wasn't overlooking a possible software source of this problem.

Thanks!