I'd have hit the roof - £125 for nothing!
Phone BT to sort it out. Shocking. I know exactly what you mean though - can still remember the one my parent's had. Small grey box. The great thing with the new NTEs is that you can replace the front part with a snazzy ADSL one, as I've done with my parents (or will do when I remember the tools I need to wire the extension they want) or have a fiddle and wire up extensions. I'd imagine you'd have problems with ADSL, if you want to use the line for that - due to the ancient/dodgy wiring.