A happy ending to my dead pixel story:

As stated in my previous post, I received a second phone which also had screen problems that manifested themselves in the form or several dead pixels making the dark screen look like the Milky Way.
When I called Nokia Care, they oriented me towards the nearest Nokia Care center which fortunately was very close by (in Lyon France). When I went there, the guy happen to have a spare N900 screen in stock and it took him a total of about 4 days to repair it.
After thorough inspection of the new screen, I'm happy to say that it has no dead pixels!
The only thing is that they did need to open it up and the screws, although not stripped, do show that the screen was accessed. The repair guy told me that he had no problem opening it up and replacing the screen but he did mention that it was difficult making sure there were no dust particles underneath the screen when he closed it up...

Best of luck for the others facing this issue.

-=AC=-