[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S III] topherk:
Ok, I don't really want to go toe to toe with you about this, but I'm going to anyways.

First off, the warranty you're using is actually

Samsung's One-Year Limited Warranty

. Sprint will do the exchange at the store, but the actual warranty is Samsung's, not Sprint's.

Ok, since that's out of the way, let's dive into the actual text of the warranty (since I'm not going to trust any "last time I checked" statement from anyone, especially with legal documents).

Ok, I added a little emphasis here, but I'm trying to make a point, so bear with me. The bolded statement immediately shoots down your argument that "The one year covers everything software related they don't fix hardware." Rooting your phone, in no uncertain terms, falls outside the "normal use and service" category. I could stop right here, but I doubt that you'll be convinced by that one argument, so let's keep going down this rabbit hole, shall we?

Ok, this is a huge section, and no, it doesn't explicitly state "rooting your phone voids this warranty," but if you're looking for such a specific term in a legal document, you're asking for trouble. I have bolded a couple of items above which are not covered by the warranty. Below is my summary of them.

resulting from accident, misuse, abnormal use, abnormal conditions This, again, covers the "abnormal use" category of the phone. Using Odin to root your phone is not in the users guide that came shipped with the phone. It's not covered by anyone. In fact, every Guide which has Odin instructions warns you that you could brick your phone and that you need to be very careful.

(g) defects or damage resulting from improper testing, operation, maintenance, installation, service, or adjustment not furnished or approved by SAMSUNG; In case number one wasn't specific enough, any of the terms above could cover "rooting." You're "testing" a method to "install" an "adjusted" operating system that is not "approved by SAMSUNG." Even the legalese here is not too thick to translate.

(i) defects or damage resulting from cellular signal reception or transmission, or viruses or other software problems introduced into the Product; This goes directly against your statement that "The one year covers everything software related they don't fix hardware." This is saying that and software problems introduced (post manufacturing) will not be covered. There's no ifs, ands, or butts against this one.

Finally, the last argument that you could say is: "well, they replaced mine three times without question, isn't that the same as saying this is ok?" No, it's not. It's saying that they don't always enforce their rules, but a similar argument is saying "well, this person was acquitted of murder due to lack of evidence, so the judge is saying it's ok to murder as long as I don't leave evidence of it." It's a logical fallacy and holds no truth.

Edit: Ok, I know it's not fair for me to use such an extreme example (murder) to make my point. It's hyperbole to the extreme and i shouldn't have used it in my argument. I apologize for that. But I also think that the correlation is not entirely false. Not enforcing the rules is definitely not the same as condoning the action. I guess my argument boils down to this: If you really want to try to return the phone under it's warranty, it sounds like you can "play dumb" and they'll replace it. But if you do, you're committing fraud (as I previously defined). The FBI won't be knocking on your door, but it's still a moral issue.

One of my favorite things about people is that we have the capacity to learn from our mistakes. The best way to have a lesson "stick" is to actually pay the price for the mistakes. It seems that you haven't had to pay for yours, so the lesson hasn't stuck. I see many people on XDA who are much more careful about flashing Roms once they have to pay the price, and they're much better for it.