I'm just trying to understand the program as I suspected, and it appears to be correct, that both company representatives gave me the wrong answer. It does seem unlikely that I can have them pay the half of my balance that's left, then pay me the $300 "trade-in value", meaning I essentially have the phone for a year for nothing, for the $2 cost of JUMP over insurance. But I wanted to be sure I wasn't missing out on a tremendous value.
As these will be for my kids, with 3 lost iDevices and 2 cracked iPad screens floating around somewhere, insurance is a certainty. So it's only $2. But it appears to be $2 not needed. A 5s is going for about $425 right now, so exchanging the phone instead for the $325 balance doesn't make sense, and it makes less sense with each passing month. Unless you're just looking for the convenience of not bothering with selling it.
I don't see anyone saying EIP is a waste of money - it's just a financing tool. I'd rather avoid the credit check (to keep the score up, not out of approval concerns), but it appears to be needed (for some odd reason) to get the better monthly rates.
Sprint is the only one becoming competitive on pricing ($100 for 4 devices and 28GB/month for the first year..!), but I've suffered with their coverage for long enough. I'm betting that TMo continues the trajectory over the last year and fills in the remaining holes.