For those who don't know, we've had field fixes of just-shipping cameras before. The one most of us participated in was for the initial D1x shipment, where cameras shipped from the factory but needed a final engineering tweak. This involved sending your camera to a central location in the midwest (near all the overnight hubs) for a quick part swap. Nikon will apparently do the same thing for the D5000 recall: pay for prompt shipping to and from a central repair location, and do the repairs as quickly as possible. If my memory is correct, I was without my camera for a total of five days last time this occurred.
I understand and appreciate that Nikon is trying to appear responsive and proactive, but because no one will know the effected serial numbers until later this week (July 23rd), all D5000 owners are currently wondering if they have a defective camera and were left wondering that for a full week from the initial announcement. Any sane camera store should have stopped selling the model. Unless the recallinvolves all D5000's--that's possible, but the implication of the service advisory is that it does not--the "early warning" is essentially causing anxiety amongst those that might not actually have a problem. To play it safe, you have to not take any D5000 on assignments without having a clear backup, even if your D5000 isn't one that is affected. I don't fully understand the delay between announcing the problem and revealing the serial numbers. Almost certainly the parts batch that is causing the problem is known to have been used in a particular serial number build.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that something is amiss in Nikon's part QC. We've now had known and widespread part failures on the D70 (BGLOD), D2h (Dead Meter), and D5000 (Dead Camera). These are outright failures, and I don't think any other manufacturer has had so many in their DSLR lineup. One we can forgive. Two gets our attention. But now three has our undivided attention. Unfortunately, given the track record so far, we can't rule out future such problems.
Again, it's good that Nikon steps up and does the right thing by users. But this sort of thing has already happened too often. Fix the underlying problem, Nikon, don't keep pushing defective parts out to users and offering to repair them. Basically, you're starting to condition users to wait to buy your equipment to see if you've got all the defects ironed out.