Perhaps you misunderstood Sprint or they made a mistake because it simply doesn't work that way most of the time. Inside of 30 days, take it in...drop it off...get your money back. After the 30 you're still under warranty for a total of 12 mos. Walk it into a Sprint (factory) store with repairs and let them attempt to fix it. If they can't, you get a replacement phone. No $35, no $100, just a simple replacement. It'll almost certainly be a refurb but it remains under your initial 12 month warranty coverage. If you don't live near a Sprint store, call them and tell them of the problem and ask to have your call escalated. They will send you a replacement phone (refurb) and you send your broken one in. Simple as that. I've seen both methods used within the past week. My wife's Evo was outside of 30, but within warranty and had the loose USB issue. They looked at it, said it wasn't repairable and walked out with an in-box refurb. 20 minutes later...out the door. One of my co-workers was on vacation and called Sprint with an issue. They sent him a replacement at his vacation address.
Not sure why it was your day to hear bullsh!t, but it's not the way it works.
bj