Unfortunately, I see a lot of that around here. It's easy to get a guy to come to your house for collect his $40 for a warranty service call, but more often than not, he hasn't a clue how to fix the problem or, as in your case, can't even see the problem for himself. I hope the new set works out...
The new Hitachi widescreens are going to come apart into 2 pieces for those 'difficult' deliveries. I just learned this at a Cedia regional this weekend.