Ok, Why Did I Pay $1500 For This?

I found a solution that has worked for a bit now for the Macbook headphone jack red led of death problem, where the internal speakers quit working after headphones are removed: take a q-tip and remove some of the cotton from the tip, trying to make sure there are not lots of wisps left around. Push the q-tip into the headphone jack. If it takes too much work, remove more cotton. Try to keep the cotton removal equal along the length of the q-tip because what you're trying to clean is waaaay back up in the jack. Once the q-tip is in there, twist it around, move it in and out and then remove it. If sound does not start up immediately, repeat the process. If sound still does not start, put a pair of headphones in the jack and remove them. If it still does not start, I guess you're not as lucky as I was. Btw, the q-tip came out really, really disgusting. Apparently that jack gets pretty dirty, and dirt was clogging the microswitch. Why it would work sometimes and not others and suddenly switch off all by itself remains a mystery, but, for now, it's working.