I can easily sympathisze with your frustration. I waited about 3 weeks to receive the first MBPR. Thankfully, it only took 10 days for the second one to arrive.
To be fair, though, I would hope among all the customers who have bought this model, many are very happy with their purchase and they do not experience anything wrong. However, even if it is just 100.000 of us, it remains a big problem on Apple's hands.
I got the Spyder 4 in the mail today, so I could calibrate the MBPR. I also re-calibrated my 27" Cinema Display.
Since the screen has a very yellow white point by default, calibrating it brings ameliorates perception slightly for print documents — in other words, the image looks a bit better than using the built-in profile —, but it is still just somewhat acceptable. And again, I want to stress that is for OFFSET output.
However, it is but a catastrophy for web-based design. 😟
I am running the CS6 Suite on both computers MBPR and MacPro 5,1.
Clearly, using the custom profile, the MBPR exhibits the same CMYK image as on the Cinema Display with a more red/yellow tone — a pink background composed of 100% M looks more red-ish/orange than it should.
When using the built-in profile — which is supposed to be the default web standard — and using the appropriate settings in Photoshop, it is just plain bad.
For example, an image in grey tones that looks perfect on the MacPro just looks horrible (darker and yellow) on the MBPR.
That means if I would create the same image on the MBPR, I would end up with a picture looking too light and bluish on everybody's computer. That *****.
Unfortunately, I'll have to live with it for a week, since I have to travel for an on-site shooting job. Problem is, I'll have to retouch every single image when I come back, on my MacPro. Really not good.
I have dropped an email to the Apple representative who takes care of my account to let him know about it, copying the person in charge of returns. Chances are, I'll have to send it back yet again and I am quite stressed about it, I have to say. Simply because not only is it an unnecessary waste of time —working freelance, I often travel on-site for many jobs—, but also because I may just end up with a replacement featuring an LG screen that not only will be too yellow again, but also will exhibit an image retention problem.
I do not want to be paranoid about it and I just hope all this finds a sound resolving.
In the meantime, I am a bit worried since I cannot schedule my workflow as to work on site and then come back home to do it all over again on my desktop to deliver a professional result to the client.