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yellownotepad said:
hydro store guy said that i wont be able to keep it vegging a whole lot longer if its preflowering and that there is a chance it could autoflower, or just stop growing / eventually die.

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Honestly, I think the hydro store guy is a moron. Not the first time someone has quoted a hydro store guy on here being a moron, either.

Preflowers develop automatically during the vegetative state. There's really no way that I know of in which they don't develop. Yet, people obviously keep mother plants in vegetative state for years, even a decade and more. They aren't going to start flowering until the lighting schedule changes, unless they actually have auto-flowering genetics.

The guy is a douche; don't worry about it.

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yellownotepad said:
how would i go about changing the soil for the mother plant?  would it even survive whatever disturbance to the root system would need to occur for that?

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The best thing to do, if the soil is adequate enough to get you by, is just roll with it, and when it starts getting root bound, trim the root system, as documented in that link to keeping bonsai mothers that I gave to you earlier. Then transplant it back into the same pot, but start using the better soil. Of course, each time you would do this, it'd be the same amount you'd be taking off, so its not like you'd be getting most of that soil out of there, and it isn't often that you would trim the roots. If you are really going to have problems with the soil you have, maybe it would be better to just take a really good clone of it and start over. I'd definitely recommend going over that link a couple times, because I think it is really important to keep a mother well-trained, so you'll be able to take the clones you need without requiring much space for the mother (its not like you're going to keep transplanting it into bigger pots and let it keep growing in size, it is just impractical and pointless), and also to ensure that it will last for many years, since it is a great phenotype (considering that it was selected to be a mother out of all the others).