Before people start flaming - I'm a frequent traveller - these headphones are important to me
Basically whilst in the states recently, I was talking to a BOSE guy with my old QC2's, asking if I could get the pad's replaced. My pair was about 4-5 years old, so the pads had taken some wear + the headband, however audio quality was still fine.
Anyway to cut it short, he offered to give me a brand new pair of QC15's (pretty much the same as QC2) for $99 if I traded in just the headphone and cable. Not sure if this is any use to anyone, but definitely a pretty good deal if you already have a pair of old QC2's.
If you do the maths, that's $20 of depreciation per year, not too bad and you get a brand new case, cables, + warranty, that lost adaptor, the batteries etc.
So, if your pads are worn and you were looking at the QC15's consider a trade in - not bad I think.