I'll Eat some Crow too! Bad D800 here!

Thanks for the update. As you have discovered, the AF issue is blatantly obvious. It can be easily seen shooting anything handheld and looking at the rear LCD. That's why it's so offensive for people with the AF issue to be told that it's user error or the target is not Nikon approved.

If you don't mind me asking what's your serial number and firmware version for the defective D800 ? Ming Thein has suggested that batches shipping with firmware A1.01 and B1.02 are the ones that may be fixed from the factory.