If you try to go through Dish, you will not only pay more [...]
Is this necessarily true, especially for a Plan A customer with the DISH Protection Plan? In the ten or so years that I've been with DISH, I've never paid anything for any of my DISH'n It Up receiver upgrades/swaps, save the tips that I gave the techs (yep, DISH has never even charged me the $15 technician visit fee). And as I understand it, even if you own the Joey, if you use it on a daily basis, as I would, you'd still have to pay $7 per month, isn't that right? For these reasons, I'd prefer to go through DISH
if I could specifically order the second-gen Joey (I don't mind 24-month commitments; I plan to stick with DISH). Please let me know if any of my information is wrong--I'm just trying to get the best deal that I can. I'm a DISH and television fan more than I am a satellite technology and retail expert; you, and many here at SatelliteGuys, are definitely all of those things, so I defer to your superior knowledge. Thank you.
[...]but also be subject to receiving anything Dish happens to have on hand--even refurbs! [...]
I feared this. It is absolutely the case that you can't specifically upgrade to a second-gen Joey from DISH? That'd be a bummer.