All I can say is "wow." I pulled out of that buy because I had seen enough of Joel's mindset [culminating in the irrational hissy-fit hack job on RW someone alluded to] to be wary of dealing with him and I have to say I'm feeling pretty good about that call having seen what you went through. Though to be fair, the non-defective ones look simply gorgeous in the photos, and I'm surprised he didn't insist on going to bat for you to get it fixed rather than saying you should have expected that.
Anyway, all's well that ends well [ignoring the wasted cash], and your custom scales are a knock out. And it should be a fun shaver if you are able to overcome the poor initial honing - my simple inexpensive one ($165 I think) with black plastic scales from rasurpur, which I think Martin honed for free, is really really fun to handle even for a rookie and gives super shaves.