Yeah - I have a couple shops that I'm tight with who have given me a heads up when whichever truck is rolling through if I ask (SO and Matco in my case). I haven't ever needed a warranty, but would expect exactly what the shop got.
My Matco locking flex is still stupid-stiff on the locking mechanism. I occasionally think about catching the truck to swap it out, and I'd bet there would be zero issues. If it were an Icon/HF tool, it probably would have happened a long time ago. If it broke, I'd be fine with mail-based warranty, though they'd be competing with Tekton in terms of service-expectation...
I don't really count as someone who uses them, but I still think it's a business model that borders on predatory, at least in population centers of any significant size. I'm not questioning the quality of the tools, but there are a lot of techs that are far-deeper in debt than they should be when they could be putting money in a IRA/ROTH/retirement account and working just fine with lesser-but-good-quality tools that require a quick visit to a NAPA/HF/whatever on the way home for a warranty swap. It doesn't seem like tools breaking is a big problem these days either. And not in truck-branded boxes, either (at least until it's a disposable-income thing as opposed to a need-a-box thing) - there are so many good options (Strictly, Icon, etc.) that aren't the massive investment and are just fine.
/rant
