[houltmac]

Robenson, I am sorry to hear you have had such a bad time of it - this is a very unusual story. I can say this with confidence because I work for an AASP as the Workshop Manager and see my fair share of repairs.

It would appear that while the unit was passing all the standard automated tests thrown at it there was an underlying issue that these tests will not show. Since the issue turns out to be related to the power supply there is nothing that could be done to prove such in an automated fashion. That is not to say it couldn't have been caught with good old manual testing and it's not to excuse a machine being returned un-repaired (especially if the fault is as quick to find as you say).

I can say with confidence that most engineers would have taken more than 2 days to find the fault and that many would have concluded a main logic board issue based on the description and basic testing coming back negative. I can't say that having to part with your machine for so long is really acceptable however (since our company aims for 24-48 repairs most of the time).

May I ask if there is an issue with lack of support for your country, or are you in the US/UK/other country with a large Apple presence?

I would not want to comment on the tactics of Apple in this matter, but I would seriously consider whether to return to the repair centre you visited again. I hope you have much better luck in the future, and enjoy your Mac to it's fullest. Again, I will re-iterate that this really is an unusual occurrence (and no, I don't work for Apple).