its a good idea..
But can't they see my phones activity?
Not if your phone is off. But then they would try to help you trouble shoot it and you would have to pretend that your actually helping them and so on and so but it depends on how bad you want a trade. I actually bricked my phone (sort of) or I was stuck in the M. and I knew it was because of messing around w/ Roms and such but just played the part about the OTA stuck on M problem that was going around. They where happy to send me a replacement because of the extended warranty I had on the phone. Might be worth a try, They won't lose any money replacing the phone because of the warranty so you shouldn't get any static or redtape questions from them. It's Verizon you'll be talking to not Motorola, get my drift?
(By the way, I fixed my phone (pwr/volumedown/camera-bootloader-sbf) before the replacement got here so I refused the shipment and that was that.=)