Still no Dell
I got mail from the "escalation" people from Dell's technical support. They were going to try to reach a solution in a reasonable time frame, a solution that should be acceptable to both parties. But that was a week ago, and no acceptable solution has been forthcoming.
So I mailed the people from the television show that had gotten Dell to open the special phone number, and they told me they were to mail Dell for me...
Let's see whether that will make things happen. In the meantime, my Thinkpad z60m should be delivered today. Again, having had experience with Dutch resellers, I'm thinking it won't happen today, but I might be surprised yet.
But why does Lenovo make it so hard to buy their products? Most resellers don't stock more than a small fraction of the Lenovo product range, and it seems that what they stock are the anemic bottom-of-the-range models. The first company silently canceled my order; the second company hasn't let me know anything.