I wasn't shown much sympathy at the fact that I have work on the machine that now cannot be accessed and may have to be redone.
No manufacturer guarantees your data for you.
Getting bent about Apple not being not sufficiently sympathetic that you didn't back up, is not particularly useful.
http://www.apple.com/legal/warranty/docs/cpuwarranty.pdf
Apple does not warrant that the operation of the product will be uninterrupted or error-free. Apple is not responsible for damage arising from failure to follow instructions relating to the product’s use....
you should make periodic backup copies of the information contained on the product’s hard drive or other storage media to protect the contents and as a precaution against possible operational failures...
Recovery and reinstallation of software programs and user data are not covered under this Limited Warranty.
When you call Apple again, you may have an option, and that is to ask for advance exchange (sometimes called DIY warranty) where they will take your charge card for security, and then send you the replacement machine first.
Then, you could take the old machine to an authorized independent Apple service centre, and pay them to extract the hard drive, transfer the data, and then put the HD back into the dead machine.
Alternatively, if you cant do the advance exchange, you may be able to have the hard drive taken out, data imaged off of it, onto an external hard drive, and then put back in.
This service will cost you money, of course, but that's the consequence of not doing the backup prior.
