Send in Forerunner 205 for repair or buy new?

I received a Forerunner 205 back in December of 2007 and have used it for just about every run and bike workout.  I had to send it back to Garmin already once because I couldn't hear the audible beeps (for intervals or if I needed to speed up).  Garmin sent me a replacement (free of charge) and the audible beeps went out again a few months afterwards and I had called Garmin to get another RMA.  With a couple of races coming up, I continued using the Forerunner, not really worried about hearing the beeps.

Fast forward to this past week.  I was out for a long bike ride and on the last 2 miles, I noticed that my Forerunner screen is blank.  I know it wasn't the battery because it was just recently recharged.  When I got home, I put the Forerunner on its based, hooked up to my computer to try and download my recent workouts and see if perhaps the battery had just discharged.  The screen on the Forerunner shows "battery charging in progress" but quickly switches to "battery charging complete".  But my computer puts out an error code saying that it doesn't recognize the Forerunner, so I can't pull my recent workouts into my workout logs. 

I tried to do a soft and hard reset, but I can't get anything to show up on the Forerunner, can't even get it to turn on.

I called Garmin's technical support and they say that for $69, I can send it in for repair.  I saw in another thread that some people have sent in their 205's and got 305's in return.   I would love to send in my 205 and get a 305 in return, but that's no guarantee that'll happen.

Seeing that new 305's are selling for $150 at Costco, would this be worth sending in or should I just buy a new one? 

Thanks