Thanks, everyone!
I will try the Cloud solution first (and keep my fingers crossed). This will be the first time I bought a fresh Kindle from a store. When I ordered from Amazon, the email address and everything else about my account was preloaded when I took it out of the box.
Hoping that this will go smoothly. Granted I will still have the PW 1 functionally but I would love to have the new device with a minimum of pain and then perhaps give the PW1 to my wife after resetting it.....
We shall see......