From my experience, renewing the visa is not too difficult if you (or your company) have a decent immigration attorney.
The only annoying thing is that you'll have to go to a US consulate outside the US to get the visa stamp in your passport.
I used to live in San Diego and always found it baffling that the US requires people to go through this strange procedure.
In San Diego, it is a russian-roulette type of play: you go to Tijuana (right across the border) and you either get a visa extension or you don't. If you don't, you're stuck in Tijuana. I know people (from Europe) that had to arrange for a trip home because they were denied a visa extension (J-type).
