That's what I mean by cultural norms. You are essentially demanding that this man accede your preferred experience. This guy may just be totally clueless that this is how you experience devices (because I can tell you a lot of other folks do not experience unboxing the way you do).
And it's okay that you wish to have that experience, and that Apple wishes to facilitate that sort of experience, but to blame this guy for not having known what your expectations are ahead of time, that is what comes off to me as entitled.
Apple pretends that they are mind readers (what they really are is a company that is really good at cultivating expectations that they then meet), and AT&T and your rep are clearly not mind readers and are also bad at cultivating expectations.
When I order large things (Televisions, Furniture) it's a luxury to have people come into my home, open the product, and take the packaging away. That's common sense, too.
These emotional highs create some very strong connections. I think it's one of the reasons Apple has such high brand loyalty. And AT&T is messing this up for new customers. They didn't get to experience opening their new product, sure they might think it's great like I do, and spend the rest of their life happy with it.. But I think there's a key component to the Apple experience missing.