This has been my experience as well. Dealing with the carrier over it was awful, but going to an Apple store saw me given me a new phone there and then (and I w

This has been my experience as well. Dealing with the carrier over it was awful, but going to an Apple store saw me given me a new phone there and then (and I was out of warranty). Obviously it's dependent on the problem (1st: case cracked, 2nd: lock button failure) but I've always found them to be very helpful when dealing with failures.