Well, I tried this before, but with working intermittently, something timed out. I will reduced the dialog to a listing of dates and events:

April 6 - At Pittsburgh Airport (ghetto - no wireless but in the one area) on the way to visit family. My iBook G4 doesn't boot - it just flashes colors
April 9 - Make Genius Bar appointment for Cambridge Apple Store (near my work); travel home; drop off sick machine.
April 13 - Pick up laptop [they replaced the logic board and dc-in board] - take back to office, works great. Put it to sleep, play with it more that evening.
April 14 - Doesn't boot in morning. Not same problem, but flashes question-mark on folder - sometimes drops to Open Firmware command-line and spews out weird memory error. Make appointment - drop off later that day.
April 18 - Pick up laptop [replaced all the memory and they tested everything]. I walk back to my office and turn it on. Same fucking problem. So I walk back, show them, they take it back in.
April 24 - They call me in the afternoon saying that they replaced much of what they think they needed to [found out later this was the logic board, heat sinks, and hard drive (after transferring my stuff over)], but they have one part [hard drive cable] that they can't get from the warehouse anymore. They tracked it down in the Soho store and it is being overnighted. It will be ready around 3 or 4 pm tomorrow.
April 25 - I don't hear back, but I am in the neighborhood, so I swing by about 6:15pm. No computer. No part [I was suggested it may have been snagged for some other repair].
April 26 - I receive a call that they have been taking too long with this repair [no shit], and that they are sorry [ok...]. So they were wondering if I would mind getting a mid-range, white Macbook as a replacement [score!]. I said, sure, so long as my data was brought over, and she said they would start immediately and I could pick up that evening. So I did.

So, even though it was quite a bit of time without my computer, I basically traded a two-year-old (almost to the day) 14" iBook G4 (which was a decent machine) for a brand new 13" widescreen, 2.0 Core Duo Intel, white Macbook. I would have to say, if I was buying a laptop to replace my old one, this is what I would get (including color - I like the white ones), except I would have gotten a bigger hard drive. But all things considered, I have a new laptop (two years newer) and since I had a year left on Apple Care, I am able to get Apple Care on this one, prorated for the year I have already paid for. So double-score.

So very sweet, indeed.