What exactly is the hardship in waiting for new buckles?
I do not own a harnessed graco seat at the moment. I avoided graco seats while these buckles were in use because they are hard to use when working properly. It was a horrible design from the getgo. However, the number of people who have had legitimate safety issues - stuck buckles that went beyond that - compared to the number of people who have graco seats overall, is not that big.
Personally, if I owned a Graco seat, and liked it otherwise, and was not having an immediate problem with the buckle, I would not expect a major retailer to take a hit on it and replace the seat. And if the buckle was not showing immediate signs of declining function, I would be fine using it.
I think that whenever there is a recall, there can be much more hysteria regarding the product at hand than is warranted. Yes there are safety concerns. Yes one toddler died as a result of the buckle not opening. But the chances of you being in a firey crash and your buckle refusing to open during the time period prior to your buckles arriving is very, very, very small.
More specifically related to the question, I did purchase graco boosters recently, and received an email from Target informing me about the recall and telling me to check the graco web site (even though obviously my seats were not affected). It makes no mention of returning the seats to Target, it says to contact Graco. I would think that since Graco is dealing with the problem and fix is simple - mailing out a new harness - it makes little sense for a retailer to take back a seat, unless it was purchased recently enough that it would be done as a normal return.
I would not be surprised if SOME retailers are offering to refund for the entire seat, but I would not expect it to be the norm, nor is it something I would personally pursue at this point.