So can I request the coupons, purchase the boxes, and immediately exchange them for $80 bucks worth of shit I need?

Also, there must be a way to hijack the spectrum with relatively low-fi equipment now. I wonder what kind of penalties (if any) would occur if it's a publicly owned airwave.

nope. good for 90 days after issue,and only good for the dtv box. if you can find someone who needs one and doesn't have the wherewithall to get one,then i suppose you *could* barter em off. and once those airwaves are sold (they're going to auction,remember?) they become privately owned and i'm pretty sure uncle sam (or samantha,maybe) would probably call a hijack a hijack.

There will be nine million of these available on Ebay for pennies. Plus, I'm already all digital, all the time.