Since I live here in N.Y, just outside of the city I had always went in to Adorama retail store and always received excellent help and service, even though they always seem to be very busy. When I was looking for tripods recently, they brought up every tripod I asked to see and allowed me to set it up in the side area. Same with bags and everything else I ever bought from them.
not to make any excuses for them, but I know that over the past few months they have been doing a major expansion and the whole store has been pretty much upside down as they try to renovate and expand and do business at the same time. Could be that in all the chaos that must be going on there presently with the expansion and their huge amount of business, especially mail order that things got out of control.
I just saw the pics from your 5D on the Viewfinder, so i take it everything turned out ok I the end?