[shaggylive]

yup, I think you may have gotten caught by left over core files that conflicted, thus the extra hard reset.

anyway, before that with the black screen, I wonder if a radio flash would kick it back
(instead of messing with the bootloader)

also especially after having trouble like you had, I recommend doing the complete flash with windows and the phone fully booted,
some of the radio info won't be 'updated' if you enter bootloader manually. (forgot who pointed that out to me)