Garmin 500 bought for my hubby who WANTS someone to steal it and the endless complaining makes my head hurt (the thing can easily take 5 miles to find satellites while saying "working" the whole time - um, dear Garmin NOT working would be more appropriate message).
Start riding after the GPS position is fixed and ready, not before. In my 500 experience that might take 30 seconds to 2 minutes. When I was getting ready to ride, I'd turn on the 500 and before I had on my shoes, gloves and helmet, the 500 would be ready.
No crime necessary -- plenty of people would be glad to pay $111+ on ebay for the 500 your husband doesn't want. If you both don't want it, sell it to someone who does. It remains the workhorse of training-oriented cycling computers.
I do now use a Garmin with GPS and GLONASS and it fixes its location on startup very quickly.
In both cases, it helps that I'm usually starting it from the location where I last turned it off.