Hey I was unfortunate to join the shattered screen club as well. First off, let me say I JUST exchanged the hp touchpad for the 16gb iPad 2 aug 25th. Last week I placed my beautiful tablet on top of my girlfriends car, forgot about it and drove off. A while later I heard it fall from the roof when we were on a big ave. I was able to recover it and was thinking at first purchasing another one at 500 dollars, then I found you could purchase the touchscreen digitizer for 100, in which case I would install it myself. While looking for the digitizer, I came across this forum and reading all the pages of stories about explaining your story and being very truthful and patient and humble, I found out all of you were correct.
I first spoke with the greeter, who after seeing the screen said there MAY be a chance they could replace it. After waiting for 50 min, I spoke briefly with the rep at the genius bar who saw it and I asked what options there were for me. He looked at my model and searched his computer and said a replacement would be 270. I immediately thought of this forum and thought to myself dang I guess I wasn't going to be that lucky. When he asked if that was something I looked like I'd want to get then and there I said it would take time to come up with it. That's when that great customer service kicked in, "you know what because of what happened to tyou we can replace this as a one time courtesy, but just once next time it's 270" I shut up and they made the switch with a reconditioned one that looks just as good as my new one. I was extremely happy and will def recommend everyone to go here because of the wonderful customer service