I used letstalk about 2 year ago. Everything went amazingly smooth, got my free phone and acativated it that day, never had a problem with it. I ended up selling it a few months ago actually lol.
highly recommended
the touch might be a stretch for an 11 year old. The screens love to shatter at seemingly soft drops on the ground. I would recommend the 30gb zune, it's a solid mp3 player with built in radio tuner and tough as nails. they were on sale at woot.com for $80 a few days ago. i'm sure you could find one on amazon for a similar price.
Jansport is amazing and what i used in high school (same bag all 4 years, never a problem). For college i've been using an adidas comox cling III. a little pricey $50 but it has held up for 3 years and has back support and headphone slots etc.
Good job on shopping around and getting more opinions and quotes. I can't tell you how many times I have been to a house and seen the customers jaw drop when we quote them. We usually come in alot cheaper on our quotes because of our brand loyalty and warehouse loyalty connections :)
$3000 for a 3ton is outrageous!!!!