Long story short: I whined to the right people and was able to help Apple see things my way. My lemon of a 1.25GHz PowerBook was replaced with a so-far-so-good 1.5GHz PowerBook and my faith in Apple has been restored.

On the other hand, due to actions taken without cause or provocation, my faith in Simply Computing is all but drained. I will be looking for a new Mac shop.