[soulfuldog]

That's a surprise, Amazon usually seem to offer a reduced price on a replacement model - they seem to be the most savvy when it comes to trying to keep their customers. If you buy any other ereader, you are pretty much guaranteed to be on your own once the warranty period is up, so don't be buying another ereader and hoping to get better service! (Though if it's just faulty you can of course argue that it should have lasted longer and seek a refund/replacement that way).

Perhaps the people that get offered cheap replacements buy Amazon are all pretty good customers, whereas you perhaps haven't bought many ebooks for your Kindle from Amazon, so therefore they aren't so worried about offering you any deals?

Anyway, back to the question in hand, an epub capable reader so you can also read library books... 'Other' brands like Onyx, Pocketboot etc just aren't as easily available and readers with bigger screens are just pretty dear. I hadn't considered the Nook because it's poor for PDF's out of the box, whereas the Sony will be similar to your Kindle. But if you are willing to root it, the Nook could be an option, and a far cheaper option than the Sony.