I would give Verizon a little more credit than that. When I ordered a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7(the one with the AMOLED screen) from Verizonwireless.com,
the price was only $279 for a CLNR unit.
It took 8 exchanges before I got one that I thought was "perfect" and in mint condition. The one that I kept was more than perfect... Verizon did not charge
me an extra cent for doing 8 exchanges. To be fair, only 1 had hardware issues. The other 7 only had varying degrees of cosmetic blemishes.
My point is that a CLNR GN at $230 is a good deal. If you don't get one that you consider acceptable to YOU, then keep exchanging it until you get one
that's okay with you. (worst case... you just return it completely for a refund)

If I didn't already have two active Galaxy Nexus and two spares, I would
definitely jump on the deal. (actually I have a 3rd spare GN, but that's a GSM unit)