If you had said you were returning a two year old unit for warranty repair, and it was denied because you did not use the original box, I would sympathize with you. Expecting you to keep all your boxes for years would clearly be ridiculous.
But for a DoA unit? You couldn't keep the box for a few hours or days? Seriously?
Picture this: You bought 10 of something, all identical items (minus some sn on the box). You throw away the packaging material for 8 or 9 of the 10 items (remember, it's all identical). You then have a device DOA/fail that isnt the EXACT packaging you saved. What difference would it make to newegg take the item out of the box and scan the barcode inside? A little customer service goes a long way.
I kept one box and the styrofoam in case I had to return a unit.
I remember Sun once sold mini box versions of their workstations (rather than the original pizza box) - their claim was that at the square footage cost of a Wall St trading floor the machines would pay for themselves in 'n' years.
Then there was a note on the pallet sized box that the machine + 19"CRT came in - saying that you had to keep it for warranty returns!
But for a DoA unit? You couldn't keep the box for a few hours or days? Seriously?