Well, now i have my new motherboard, and it is working like a dream. All the ram shows up, cpu is 59c after some time working in photoshop testing it out a little, fan at 1500 rpm. Until i did that, the cpu was at 47c and its fan was spinning at 1200rpm. Life is good.
My theory about the whole 'banged corner' spiel the store rep got into was that he didn't want to go into the whole thing with me about how they don't diagnose things themselves, they just send them on, and because of the border Gigabyte wasn't going to get the rma for 2 weeks, and they weren't going to send a replacement until Gigabyte gave the ok. Rather than just saying that, the rep decided to pull out an all-purpose excuse. I sure wish he hadn't. Anyhow, as soon as Gigabyte had the board, the store sent out a replacement.
One last thing, i have to say i've received much better tech support in this forum than i did in the Asus forums. Quicker responses, better information, just generally better.