SMY stepped up at last, I'm sending mods in for them to do the work on warranty.
The vendor not so much. All they needed to do was initiate RMA paperwork with SMY, to set up my returning the gear for repair. I pointed them to the repair website, which has the fulfillment policy clearly stated, included the words in emails, they just kept being dense and jumping back to their own 30 day default warranty. Not worth the hassle unless you are buying something trivial and are happy with the base 30 days they provide (which is not a bad stop gap warranty, just that they need to follow through if selling things that have a longer manufacturer warranty).
I've had far less trouble with every other vendor I've dealt with over the years. Others may have great success, maybe they're just having a bad week.