I hate to say it but that Level 3 should be out cleaning the streets, he has no idea what he is talking about.
It is the firmware that makes a receiver do the things it does, of course bad firm can and does have an effect on a receiver.
Last year there were two versions of firmware in the Datastream for 3100's, one was fine, the other was corrupt, we ended up with over 1800 receivers back in our office that ALL had to go back to NESA, because they picked up the wrong Firmware.
I deal with people pretty high up within Express Vu and even they denied it was possible, however after inviting them to our office and physically downloading firmware on 4 receivers, 3 of them took the wrong one, they realized we had a problem with the Datastream.
Within 4 hours, the second version of firmware disappeared from the Datastream.
At no time did they admit fault, at no time did they say it was bad firmware but there were too many facts that could not be ignored.
They lie directly to our faces, so of course they will lie to you as a CSR and of course they will lie to Customers, they are trying to protect their own little empires......