lol..forgot I made this thread.
I didn't have to Brick my phone. I just complained about dialer lag, that I had JUST reset my phone to factory AGAIN, and that my Facebook contacts not syncing (which, now that I have my new phone, is not hardware related..it's something in the leaked roms that doesn't play nice with my Facebook account).
The guy helping me was the store supervisor, but fortunately he was a Blackberry Person and was pretty clueless to Android. I basically showed him Facebook working on the store's Eris, and not working on mine. He did ask why my menu was different, but i pleaded ignorance and was like, "I don't know, that's just how my phone was when you guys sent out the last OTA!" (Had to explain what OTA meant). He said, "Ok, we'll swap you for a refurb phone."
So, I got my referb, and now happily running Root