Once upon a time, if you RMA'd a Western Digital hard disk and they didn't have the same disk in stock, they would ship you the next better drive. I don't know if this was exactly etched in stone or if it was just the way they did things, but those days are now gone.
I filed an RMA early last week, and WDC sat on it until yesterday because they didn't have the right disk in. I called in and spoke with a RMA rep; he informed me as to why they did not ship (they did not have a WD1600 in) and after some querying he revealed that they will still send you the next disk up, but only if you notice that it's not been delivered yet, call, and complain.
Somewhere along the line, an error occurred. Control of the world slipped from the hands of the people who want to do things right to the hands of those who care only about money. I don't know if any of you out there have particularly noticed, but putting more zeroes to the right of your bank balance (decimal points aside) doesn't seem to necessarily make one happier. Oh sure, once your needs are met you reach almost a new state of being where you can reasonably, realistically, and usefully think about the future, and once your needs are met without effort on your part I can only imagine that things improve still further (but I haven't been there since I was a child, a time of which my memories are murky.) But stacking up graven images of dead presidents, while it can be entertaining, is simply not the highest aspiration of man.
Granted, neither is good customer service, but I think it's at least a little closer.