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Good for you on your attitude!
As for playing it straight, in most cases, there's not going to be but ONE service dept. to dealer contact within the dealership, but more than likely 2 or 3 "service managers" and even more "service writers" (YMMV, this is based on the size of the dealership.)
The computer system, while just fine for those small day to day jobs that are easily "coded", more often than not do not have enough space to completely detail a major problem. Most likely, only the mechanic(s) and one service writer or manager know exactly what is going on. Talking to whomever answers the phone just leads to frustration because they aren't in the know and are trying to reconstruct your entire problem from a few notes on a screen. You might try politely inquiring as to to whom specifically is "assigned to your case" as it were and talk to no one else but them in the future.
Any factory replacement engine almost certainly would not be a "rebuild" - given the labor involved in rebuilding re-boring, aline-honing, etc. and fitting rebuild parts vs. just crating a new engine up.
Given that you've said they have pulled the bottom off to check and are taking photos, I might even venture to say there's a possibility there may be a porous block casting causing the leak, and that will entail replacing the entire engine - it's far more costly to completely remove and strip everything off an engine and assemble it all to a new block, since many of the parts on Hondas are coded by size tolerances (4 "sizes" and each has it's own set of identically toleranced matching parts with their own part numbers), and the new block may have entirely different tolerances from your old block which would require replacing a lot of parts....bearings, pistons, etc.
I wouldn't think a new engine would adversely affect the car's worth down the road. Hondas of all sorts hold their value remakably well, which is a testament to Honda's engineering. As far as 1200 mile replacements, it's almost new anyway, and to a potential buyer might not make much difference. Now a replacement at 35,000 miles might look as if you'd abused the car in some way.
Hope this helps!
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