Yeah, except these are supposed to be brand new, never-in-service units being repaired by the factory service center. My guess is "Rework" units sent back by the stores which they'll later sell as "Refurb".
As with most of the thread's respondents, my amusement is over the time frame of WEEKS where they still haven't figured out how to resolve the issue.
I suspect it has more to do with keeping the live update functionality working than anything; if these phones have been on the network, then don't call home to mommy every x number of days, each one probably gets automatically flagged as a rogue or jailbroken unit that then costs somebody with admin privileges y amount of time x 2000-ish units.
mnem
*back to my cave*