Thats funny jnem, just had a similar experience. Took about 15 minutes of voicing my discontent the woman I was speaking with. Originally she was going to take off $30. Told her that was a huge jump in price over the past few years and they are giving it away to new customers and hammering their long time customers. This got her to go to her manager who came back with $159.96 ($39.99 over four months), or half price for existing customers. I only have HBO channels and the regional sports stations packages.
Worth the aggravation of calling I guess.