Another update: [long story short, I'm getting a new N900]

I called nokia customer service again a week ago and argued with a technical support guy. He wasn't rude or anything, just firm on the fact that since my warranty expired, they couldn't do anything about my broken phone. I requested to speak to someone with a bit more authority, and he said a manager would call me back within two days time.

The next day a manager called me and we went back and forth on the warranty issue. He seemed determined to figure out exactly when the purchase was made (I couldn't find the receipt, and I wasn't sure about exactly when the purchase was made). At one point he conference called ebay to see if they could resend the purchase receipt, so that took a while.

I argued (as suggested by texrat and others on this post, and on this very helpful thread) that this was a design flaw and as such it shouldn't matter whether the warranty was expired or not. I became a bit flustered at one point when he referred to the phone as an "n95" (seriously), and after he kept acknowledged the problem but proposed no solution. It took a more than an hour of going back and forth, but he finally agreed to send me a new N900. I am awaiting it's arrival.

If this approach had not worked, my final attempt would have involved contacting "vandelay" through the nokia forums or his email, he seems to have been helpful to those on that thread.

So, it's possible but it isn't easy.