Personally, I would have just taken it to back to where I bought it and got a replacement from them... I have found that if you push them most retailers will do it no matter what the deal is.
As far as Linksys service. Not sure why you had such a problem but I tell you what they did for me... Friend of mine bought a linksys router... he didnt have it on a surge protector and his house got hit by a whopper of a surge... The loss of the router was the least of his worries. Either way it took out the router in syle. Melted the wires from the brick upto the router. He went and bought another brand new router, and this one had only been like a few weeks old.
I felt bad for the guy so, I took the router and got it swapped at a local retailer. They don't know what they are doing... They just ship it back to linksys... eitherway, I got a new router. But that was just the router, I had no idea what to do about the power cord??? I mean it was melted beyond recognition? I called up linksys to ask if I could BUY a replacement power supply. The guy asked why I wanted to? I made up some cockamamie storie about a friend borrowing it and plugging the cord into the wrong device and blowing it up. Told him the router was fine, just needed a new PS. I said, I know it's my fault so I will BUY it!!! He said, don't worry about it and shipped me a replacement for free...

Then he had a Free replacement router!