To be fair, after the same amount of questions, you're better at #explaining than the verizon lady was.
But I figured it out. In the left column of buying a phone, you're paying $200 + tax for the phone, $40 to "upgrade" and an extra $240 in phone service over the 2 years. In the right column of "DP" (gross), you're paying $648 plus tax for the phone and $20 to upgrade. So if I was gonna get a new phone from verizon, I'd do the left column.
But I wouldn't, I'd get it from Best Buy that has the same setup as the left column but sometimes has them on sale and I know a sonics bro that works there that could maybe hook something up.
But even that seems shitty compared to just reactivating the gE loaner phone for as long as that lasts and then activating the sony phone for as long as that lasts and then dealing with this again when we're on page 150-ish.