So my credit card was charged on 26 Oct and after all the mess with the status update website (and the lack of an update therein) and the fact that MM didn't respond to a single one of my e-mail queries, I called MM on 4 NOV and spoke with a rep who told me that I could cancel my order and WOULD be reimbursed. I pushed him on this and he confirmed the reimbursement would happen and that it would take 2-3 business days to show. I got an e-mail showing my order had been cancelled the same day.
Naturally that reimbursment never happened. I phoned MM again and they told me reimbursements are not possible from their end (I'm still not sold on this -- they can charge to my card but not credit?). They pushed everything off onto Lenovo. If I wanted a reimbursement, I needed to take it up with them. Okay, I said, that's fine, who do I talk to at Lenovo? MM couldn't tell me (not even a toll-free number). I continued to push them on specifics, as I had the feeling this whole "it's not us, it's Lenovo" thing was avoidance. They gave me nothing. (Supervisors were naturally "out of the office" during my call, by the way.)
So I called Lenovo in spite of MM's stonewalling and the customer service experience was completely different. After going through a few reps who were unsure what MM's intention was, I finally got to someone who, in spite of not knowing who in the hell MM intended me to find, said, "Send me your details, order number, etc., and we'll kick it around over here. Someone has to know what to do."
In the end, it's just seventeen bucks, so I'll manage in spite of the outcome, but it's refreshing that when faced with a puzzler, Lenovo refused to put me through the runaround as MM did. I give the new Thinkpad a hard time (e.g. the fact that I'm supposed to install a utility to disable those dumb browsing keys by the arrows -- since when do we install software to disable hardware?), but there's no doubt that Lenovo's service is far and away better than any other OEM I've ever interacted with.
The rep at Lenovo may not get anywhere, but at least he made an effort. Thank you, Lenovo.