Wow, when we filler-ized a slow news day yesterday by passing along a French report of Apple having outright replaced a chronically-ailing Power Mac G4 with an honest-to-goshness dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5, we fully expected to get some mail-- but we thought it'd be split between people calling us gullible dorks for believing the Apple equivalent of an urban legend and folks spitting venom because Apple never did anything that cool for them when they had chronically-ailing Macs that required motherboard replacements every twenty minutes. We certainly didn't expect to hear from a significant number of people saying that, yes, Apple had done similar things for them, as well. If these anecdotes are any indication, the "Mea Culpa" Upgrade Path might not be nearly as rare (or, frankly, nonexistent) as we might have suspected.

We're not mentioning any names (even those of the people who said we could) just in case Apple told them to keep this all hush-hush and that little condition utterly slipped their minds, but one faithful viewer vouches for the likely truth of the French swapout because he claims to have experienced the equivalent trade-up on the consumer side of the fence; his "very sick" 15-inch iMac G4 was eventually replaced with a brand new 17-inch iMac G5. And a few faithful viewers claim that when Apple support had eventually concluded that their Macs were irreparable lemons, instead of being given refurbs of the same model, Apple bought the wonky machines back and extended almost laughably generous offers on the purchase of brand new systems.

Reportedly it's not just people with defective Macs getting special treatment from Apple, either; we're hearing that some customers who have suffered unusually long shipment delays are feeling the love, too. One faithful viewer notes that a friend waited for such an interminably long time to receive her dual 2.5 GHz Power Mac G5 and 23-inch Cinema Display that, when the gear finally arrived, it came with a free iPod. We're assuming that the iPod was in fact a gift from Apple as an apology for the long wait, although we suppose it's not inconceivable that the iPod was actually the offspring of the Power Mac and display who got lonely in transit. (We'd be more inclined to believe that if the equipment in transit had been, say, an iMac G5 and a 14-inch iBook, but maybe the looks skip a generation.)

Keep in mind that we have no earthly way of verifying that any of these reports are true (and our unearthly way is currently out being cleaned), but being the trusting souls we are, we're just going to take people at their word. After all, why would anyone lie to us? We're all cuddly and huggable and stuff. So the next time you're fuming about the downward spiral of Apple's quality control or its habitual inability to ship in-demand products in a reasonably timely manner, smile-- if you should be inconvenienced by a Mac that's broken more than fixed for a year and a half, you just might score a free upgrade. And if you're still waiting for that high-end G5 that you ordered back when people had ridgy foreheads, dragged their knuckles on the ground, and cleaned up their caves with baby elephant vacuum cleaners, maybe-- just maybe-- Apple will throw a little surprise in the box. But don't hold us to it.