Poo - ok, its possible that it's something the Alltel extended rom installs (do you know what it installs when you hard-boot? Can you soft-reset after a hard-boot, and does that avoid all alltell installs?
It's something to consider - we had a problem with the sprint extended rom "patching" files in the OS (actually, just copying in new dlls) which was good when you were patching AKU2.x, but was a bad idea when patching AKU3.3 (that was the missing card error - or at least a big part of it.)
Anyway, if you feel like trying a few more things - and I understand if you don't
- and know what I am talking about on the hard-reset-but-no-carrier-extended-rom-cab-installs move, it would help if you could do that and see if it still wonks out. If it does *not* we at least know that there is some issue with Alltel's extended rom additions with AKU 3.3
Since it goes back to normal for 2.2, I am hoping this is it, actually. Would be nice to know.
(Bonus points if you can get the contents of your extended_rom, and post the list of cabs it installs)