How can I actually get a WiFi problem FIXED on my Mini?

Question

OK, 32 years after buying my first Apple product (Apple ][+) I actually need hardware support for one of my products - an iPad Mini.
The result?
Worst. Support. Ever.
It has been THREE weeks since the issue, and tomorrow will be 3 weeks since my first call.  The basic problem?  When  left for work my Mini would connect to my home network just fine, but when I got home it wouldn't. And hasn't since.  On my network I also have 3 iPads (1, 2, 3), Macbook Pro, couple of iPod Touchs, Kindle Fires, Nexus 7, PC laptops, Android phones and so on.
- First, they pushed me off to Airport support and that involved loads of reconfiguration and restting.  He left me with 'homework' of totally reconfiguring the network (2009 Airport Extreme and 2x Airport Express extenders). 
- I finished all of that and it STILL wouldn't work, so I was on the phone, and they eventually decided to send a box to get a repair.
- I get the box a couple of days later - but it doesn't come with return info so I have to get the PDF to print and attach (which means another day before it goes out).
- They get the Mini at Apple, cannot reproduce the issue and turn it around ... but the email notice is late so I miss the delivery truck, and it ends up at ~6PM the next day before I see the Mini.  Not surprisingly it doesn't work.  Worse yet, I got my new iPhone 5 and it works immediately and perfectly on our network.
- I get on the phone again and although I ask for a PDF label so I can return the Mini, the person ends up sending out another box.
- The next day I take the Mini into work and it works great on WiFi (it had been spotty before, but they reconfigured it over the weekend), so I grab a WiFi analyzer for my Samsung Galaxy S3 and see it is broadcasting on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.
- I wonder if that is the issue ... so at home I switch the bnetwork to 5GHz and the Mini functions immediately and perfectly.  Of course I lose connectivity for about half of the other things.  So I switch back to 2.4GHz, and unsurprisingly the Mini doesn't work but everything else does.  I have found the problem (no thanks to Apple).
- So I call Apple that evening, and talk to a support rep, who listens for a bit but basically says that it is very likely that regardless of what he puts in the case notes that the support person would take the Mini out switch it on and if it worked they would put it in the box and return it.
- He put me through to someone else who he said would make sure that the situation was properly handled.
- Still concerned, when the box arrived (Christmas Eve), I put in a note detailing the issue and with big letters 'PLEASE DO NOT RETURN THIS IPAD MINI WITHOUT REPAIRING, IT DOES NOT WORK ON 2.4GHZ WIFI'.  I wrapped that around the Mini with the writing on the outside.
- On the 26th I get a notice that it had been received by service.
- This morning I get a call from FedEx at 8AM to be expecting the shipment.  Then a while later I get the email from Apple.
- Of course, as I checked the email I see that they did exactly the same thing ... returned without doing ANYTHING.
- So ... surprise, surprise ... it STILL doesn't work on 2.4GHz WiFi (but will work on 5GHz).
- So again I call.  This time the person sends me to a 'supervisor', who assures me that they will do a swap and gives me a specific case # to take to the UPS Store where they will be able to get it shipped out to the correct warehouse and it will be resolved.  He gives me the case #, and his name and contact #.
We got over a foot of snow, so it took a bit to get out, but I had to drive my son to a house to do shoveling as part of the local Youth Bureau, and then headed into town to the UPS Store.
You probably know what is coming - when I get there they cannot pull up any info on the repair ID, nor by my phone number.  And when I check the email on my iPhone there is nothing new from Apple Support, meaning that Jason didn't actually DO ANYTHING!  I called from the UPS Store but naturally got voice mail.
So here I sit three weeks later, having done 100% of the work myself with only pure incompetence on the part of Apple, and with a still-broken iPad Mini in my hands that has seen both coasts a lot recently.
Worse yet, it isn't like the iPad Mini WiFi is a RARE issue, it is EVERYWHERE, whether the initial disconnects, the stuff resolved by 6.0.2 or the failures like I am seeing.
Worse still, a friend of mine had a similar issue but was just dealing with it, and when I brought up the whole 2.4 vs 5GHz issue, he took it to the Apple store, told them, and walked out with a new one within 10 minutes.
Unfortunately I am 2 hours in either direction from an Apple store so that isn't an option based on my schedule and my family schedule.
So instead I get treated like a second-class citizen, and have direct requests and troubleshooting ignored by an incompetent staff that doesn't even do the most basic troubleshooting.
Any suggestions of how to get ACTUAL support from Apple outside of a store?

Answer 1

Just to close out ... the 'supervisor' was clueless as it turns out.  Apple does NOT have a deal with UPS on handling the Mini, so the person who gave me the info was wrong.  Did he call back?  No ... he just let me go out and find out myself.
So I called again, and this time eventually ended up with a manager, who told me that the UPS Store thing wouldn't work, but that a box would arrive and then there would be a 'forced replacement'.
About 10 minutes later he called back and said he discovered that EVERYTHING the supervisor did was wrong ... he didn't actually properly flag for auto-replace, so I would have gone through an identical cycle again!  So he had to restart the whole process, meaning I would get TWO 'coffins', but that I would then get an auto-replacement and would see that indicated in my support email.
I got the email, saw 'auto-replace'.  Got the box on the 28th and immediately turned it around.  Apple got the box on the 31st, and on the 1st I got emails that my Mini would arrive on the 2nd and it also had the new serial #.
Yesterday I grab the box from FedEx and go home to check it out.  As expected, it IMMEDIATELY worked on my WiFi without issue ... and has worked perfectly since.
So ...
- it was NOT my home network.
- it WAS a hardware issue with the Mini
- Apple does NOT do proper testing on the Mini to detect what appears to be a fairly common issue.
- non-retail customers ARE treated as second-class by support.
This issue took FOUR WEEKS to resolve, involved FOUR shipments back & forth, and the ONLY reason it got resolved was that *I* did the troubleshooting that Apple either would not or could not do.
For someone who has been an Apple customer for more than 30 years, this has been a sobering experience ... I quite frankly expected much better from them.