98 I30T Dead! (alternator recall to blame?)

[I30T]

OK, so over the past few days my car has been pretty hard to start; but all it needed was a push on the accelerator and it would be working fine. Yesterday, it got to the point where a push on the accelerator didnt help, because the cranking wouldnt get to the stage where you want to hit the gas (if that makes sense). It would just rev once and then hiss. I have a brand new battery, and a starter was replaced in July of last year (though since the warranty was only 12k, its out of warranty by far now).

so i checked my fluids, tried to troubleshoot and decided it probably has to be the alternator, starter, or something more complex that i can't afford to fix right now, haha. Once I thought about the possibility of getting the alternator replaced, I remembered the dubious circumstances that the dealership gave when sending me postcards about needing to get the recalled alternator replaced. I asked them about this twice and both times they said to ignore the postcard, because the alternator had already been fixed. Today, I called a different dealership, described the problem, and asked them if they thought the alternator could be to blame, and if they could check and see if it was ever, in fact, replaced... it wasn't.

I realize the recall is for them exploding and burning your car down, but as it looks like I'm up for a free replacement anyway, my fingers are crossed that it'll solve my current problem as well as keeping my car from bursting into flames!

So what does it sound like to you guys? Does the 'one crank, then hiss' scenario sound like it could be an alternator problem?