PHugger
congradulations!! I'm very happy for you!!
I want to ask your opinion about my situation.. It's pretty the same as yours, but I'm in Russia.. So, there is no Sony Reader support.. And my reader now is broken exactly the same way as yours.
Do you think is it possible to do something? I wrote to the official sony support center, but they did not answered.. a week ago.

Help me please with some advice, your story is very encouraging!