iPhone Activation Woes - Visit to the AT&T Store

I arrived at my local AT&T store early so I could be first in line. The AT&T rep recognized me immediately and said the newspaper article in which I was interviewed was posted on the wall in their break room. He was a little shocked to hear what I had endured over the weekend. I told him I was instructed to receive a new SIM card, and he, like I, didn't understand how that would help -- We never did swap SIM cards. There was no way for him to look up my information at the store since I didn't have an existing account. Therefore, he had no choice but to call tech support -- the same tech support I had been calling all weekend. I guess he was able to expedite the call somehow because he didn't have to wait the 60 minute wait time. It was more like 10 minutes. He spoke with a couple of people on the phone and wasn't making much progress. I even offered to cancel the porting of my existing numbers if that would help, but before we could investigate that route, he was transferred to what must be the Wizard of AT&T tech support.

Finally, I think we reached someone who could handle the case. This woman said she could manually perform the port of the number and bypass the automated process. I was told I would receive a call at home in 3 hours at which time the port would be completed and my activation would occur. My case was now a super-double-ultra-high-priority case receiving immediate and unwavering attention -- the first such case of the day! We'll see. I'm an hour into the wait and anxiously awaiting The Call.