Are dead-pixel PSPs coming back worse off?

Pretty much everyone's probably heard by now the various horror stories of PSPs with a
few too many
dead pixels straight out of the box (a couple aren't too unusual), but apparently some users trying to get replacement units are getting PSPs with more dead pixels than the ones they're sending in—and to add insult to injury, they have to pay out of pocket to ship their units to Sony. Having personally dealt with Sony's sorry tech support before, we can totally see this happening—but is there really any truth to this hubbub about PSP replacements?

[Thanks, Chad]