I'm having a replacement sent over to me from Apple, and they are taking their sweet time... I thought I would just wait until April 1st hoping for a Tiger release, with a chance I could get mine preloaded? How long does that usually take?
No chance whatsoever! Even if a Tiger shipping date is announced on April 1st it probably won't start shipping till around the 14/15th and will not be pre-loaded on all new Macs till a couple of weeks after that. That's why there is normally an up-to-date program for people who buy a new Mac after the announcement.