I am happy to report that thanks to the intercession of Mike Freiberg, Nikon came through for me. Yesterday I received a brand new in the box replacement scope with EP similar to what Alexis described above. And as Alexis also described, the helicoil has been replaced with a threaded metal insert. I don't know what went wrong the first time I sent my scope in for repair, but the second time, thanks to Mike, I got the great Nikon service that others have written about. Thank you Nikon, and thank you Mike.
