Frozen Mini

Last night my Apple iPod Mini starting giving trouble. At first I thought it was frozen, but the player can play songs using the wired remote. So it seemed that the click wheel wasn't working.
I scoured the web for solutions. After trying to to reset it according to instructions on the Apple support site, I did the next suggested solution: drained the battery and recharged it. The reset still didn't work. Then I tried restoring the iPod to factory settings. I can transfer songs to the player, and play them using the remote, but the clickwheel - probably the single best feature of the iPod - still doesn't work.
Of course it is no longer under warranty. The 30 day warranty ended over a month ago.

What really burns me is that I could have got a refurbished second generation iPod Mini (this one is a first generation - main difference being 2nd generation gets 18 hours battery life instead of 8) directly from Apple.com with a better warranty for less than I paid for this piece of crap...