Why is everyone so against paying for their boxes.
They were LOANED to you. That point was CLEAR on your contract. YOU signed a contract, stating you would return the box at the end of the contract (however the contract ended) That's the ONE big reason why I didn't get OnD, I got Sky instead, because with Sky you OWNED the box from day 1, even though it was given to you "free". You did read the contract didn't you.
GT have stated that they WON'T persue people who are OWED money, so if you are owed money, don't worry, you probably won't hear anything.
MANY of the old boxes are STILL GOOD and work just fine on Freeview (e.g my Pace DTR 735), granted some of the old ones may be less than perfect.
Some people complain they won't pay £40 for a tatty knackered second hand box. Well if it's tatty, that's your fault for not looking after it. In the majority of cases you were given a NEW box, if you can't look after it, tough. (I accept that a FEW people may have been given a less than perfect "refurbished" box)
The contractual obligation was that you would RETURN the box at the end of the contract. There was never a mention of the option to buy it. You should be gratefull that you now have the chance to buy it. If you don't want to buy it, stop moaning and return it. They were never obliged to offer you the choice to buy it, they could just have insisted that you return it, i'll bet that would have created MORE complaints.
You might like to consider that a LOT of people are finding freeview worthwhile, and are happy to pay £100 for a box. So much so that demand is outstripping supply at the moment, and most shops are sold out. So if YOU don't want to pay £40 for the box, consider offering the chance to buy it to a friend or relation, before you send it back. Or pay the £40 and sell it on, i'll bet you could easilly get £50 for it.
Consider also what you will do in 6 years time, or less when analogue has been switched off. Will you have a digital adapter for ALL of your televisions? Will you have a VCR with a digital decoder build in? (none are made yet) Will you be happy with just ONE source of digital TV (i.e can't watch two channels at once, or record one / watch another)? Will you be wishing you had kept your OnD box, if only for the video recorder (where speed and functionality is not so important)?