The replacement BLUE Snowball microphone got a field trial when I used it to record a friend’s violin concert. I’m pleased to say that it worked perfectly. No glitches, and the noise floor seems improved (although I don’t have the original to do an A/B comparison).
I have put a followup review on Sweetwater’s web site. Although the original malfunctioning device cost me a great deal of time and effort trying to fix the problem (or prove it was the microphone’s fault) as I literally changed out every other hardware and software component in the whole setup, I am favorably impressed with BLUE’s service. They told me they could not reproduce the problem, but given my litany of woe and the intermittent nature of the problem, replaced the microphone anyway.
I have not tried using it to do a podcast recording yet. I suspect now that I’ve gotten some experience using Apple’s AUDynamicsProcessor plug-in, which does compression and downward expansion, the results will be considerably better.