Nope! Still exactly the same Vision PCS error, exactly the same sequence of events, exactly the same everything.
Augh, what's wrong with this stupid thing?
edit: Also, the ESN is from one of my own phones and I'd smash the original into little bitty pieces to make sure it never turns on again, if I weren't hoping to use that phone for anything else in the future. So I shouldn't get any authentication errors (I would think...!) since I'm extra careful to never turn that phone on! Hey, if I could get Verizon to give me the VCast package and ignore that my Apache's ESN isn't VCast capable... I'd keep its original ESN. I figure there's no legitimate harm in swapping two of my own phones... =\
Still, really wondering how it knows anything about Sprint after all this flashing and programming!
edit: OK, I skipped the PRL step because I swore I did that either with earlier flashing or with *228 option 2, and the phone functionality is working fine. But I'm now trying it again with the included PRL from OP...
edit: Nope. Same old same old. It did fail much faster this time though... dialing -> "!" in title bar -> Vision PCS error -> "Your username or password is wrong".