My Dell repair finally completed! It took about a month but I finally got it done. What an adventure! Here was my timeline:

20 Mar 2023: Requested paid support. System was indicating display failure.

22 Mar 2023: Packing material received.

23 Mar 2023: System shipped. I took out the SSD and left the shield screw on the motherboard (important detail!)

28 Mar 2023: Repair quote for the display issued and paid.

3 Apr 2023: Repair quote for the motherboard, palm rest, and panels issued. Hesitant at first since I experienced no issue with the motherboard but since I was getting new panels, I paid it.

4 Apr 2023: Another repair quote for the motherboard issued. Huh?

5 Apr 2023: Eventually cleared it with support that I was being double-quoted.

11 Apr 2023: Repair complete. They ship it via FedEx with delivery options completely locked and requiring a signature. I was unavailable for the first two attempts of delivery and had no way to modify delivery!

17 Apr 2023: Repaired system finally received on FedEx's final attempt. Inspected the system to find that the panels and palm rest weren't replaced but worse, because they swapped out the motherboard and left the SSD out, the replacement motherboard was missing the shield screw! Support wanted to take the system back despite my attempt to get them to just ship the missing parts to me.

20 Apr 2023: Second packing material received.

21 Apr 2023: System sent back.

27 Apr 2023: Received an E-mail indicating that my repairs are not covered under warranty (I paid for the support though). Ignored this E-mail since I was out of the country at this time.

1 May 2023: Repair complete. As before, they ship it via FedEx requiring a signature but this time it was overnight service. The timing was fortunate because I return on this night.

2 May 2023: System received with all expected repairs complete! I was able to reinstall my SSD and got things going again! Yay, config files! Also, yay that a month of not installing updates didn't result in surprises.

Anyway, going for a Lenovo next time...