When calling a local apple store they connected me with an expert across the country.
Spent about 2 hours on the phone and it came down to this... (i was not in front of my mac at that moment)
Supply the Serial number so that they can verify that it came with v10.8 and they'll give me a free download. That was that promise.
So, I called today with the serial number and ultimately 45 minutes with a supervisor... all wanting me to wipe out my compute complete to downgrade the OS.
I have a license for the OS 10.8 and the license is good to run on this specific hardware Mac Mini.
The difference is that I'd like to run it under Parallel's so I don't have to lose my entire other setups.
First they spent half an hour trying to prove to me that I never had 10.8 because the App Store didn't have record of the original OS... all it showed was an upgrade to 10.9... finally we did the reboot holding Command-Options-R and after waiting 15 minutes it told us convincingly that the original OS was Mountain Lion (10.8).
But they will not let me have the OS.... they will only provide it if they do the wipe and restore for me.
Another very odd thing about the supervisor was her attitude or wildly off base perceptions of the world of software... you're either apple software or the enemy.
When I mentioned wanting to run on Parallels (she didn't react 45 minutes early - thinking she doesn't know what Parallels is) the first response was "we don't support Microsoft windows. No, I'm talking about running Mac OS on the Mac that I purchased it on.... "Sounds like you're wanting to run Mac OS on a windows computer and not Mac hardware - we don't support that". No I'm trying to run the original OS that came with my Mac on the same Mac - but I don't want it screwed up by one of your engineers the way it happened the first time. If you just let me have the download I can take care of it and install it on Parallels. "Parallels is a Microsoft company and we don't support Microsoft" But... "If it's not made by Apple, it's owned by Microsoft and we don't support it"
Pretty foolish of me to spend this much time when I could just buy it for $20.
That's the solution. Forget about wasting time trying to get help from Apple.