iPhone 3G update to 3.0 with repeated 1013 errors-now bricked iPhone-

Attempting to update an iPhone 3G to 3.0 from 2.2.1 and its now a brick.
Note that Ive tried this now from THREE different computers, two macs and one windows box with identical results. Ive uninstalled iTunes on the windows box before doing the update attempt.
The error message is 1013 which also takes you to this highly uninformative page: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1275. Ok, the USB cables and ports on three computers see the same problem error. So its either the iPhone itself or iTunes 8.2 (23) or both. Digging a bit deeper I found that there is a log file kept on the mac. Change to this directory from your home directory ~/Library/Logs/iPhone Updater Logs/ where youll find one iPhoneUpdater N.log file for each attempt to update that youve done.When the error occurs Apple asks if I want to send the info to them! YES!!! Make sure you do so that they can sort this out.Ok, looking in this log file (I wont dump it all here) you can see a number of errors. The end of the log file shows: ...Powering radio on through AppleBaseband- Ping failed, trying again, 21 tries left- Ping failed, trying again, 20 tries left- Ping failed, trying again, 19 tries left- Ping failed, trying again, 18 tries left- Ping failed, trying again, 17 tries left Exception at :0:- BBUReturnTimedOut(10)/16: Pinging timed outunexpected bbupdater exit code 16==== end of device restore output ====2009-06-17 23:39:34.000 iTunes124:11483: <Restore Device 0x188a3ef0>: Restore failed (result = 1013)2009-06-17 23:39:44.000 iTunes124:20b: iTunes: Restore error 1013Clearly there are some problems. Earlier in the log file it had problems updating a number of files.Now Ive tried this Connect your iPhone to the computer. press and hold sleep and home, and as soon screen goes blank, count off 5 seconds, then let go of sleep and keep holding home. That didnt change anything. sigh.Its almost as if this particular version of the iPhone that I have is incompatible with the current iPhone 3.0 operating system components. Maybe there is a bad driver? Hmmm....Ok, here is another error in the log file.Loading FLS file /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE2_04.26.08.fls...OKSending Block of type CodeClass(0) from file /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE2_04.26.08.fls...Beginning Dynamic EEP erase at 0x20E40000 to 0x20EBFFFE...Progress: 0 percent, 0 of 524286 Progress: 100 percent, 524286 of 524286. OKSending Security Block...OKErasing Load Area from 0x20040000 to 0x2068FF66 (this will take some time)...OKSending data for mapping 0: progress: 0 percent, 0 of 6618984 progress: 0 percent, 2048 of 6618984 progress: 0 percent, 4096 of 6618984 progress: 0 percent, 6144 of ...6618984 progress: 99 percent, 6617088 of 6618984 progress: 100 percent, 6618984 of 6618984. -- OKChecking validation result...- Warning: Validation result code indicates failure, result code = 0x0So clearly the file /usr/local/standalone/firmware/ICE2_04.26.08.fls isnt transferred properly! Something is amiss somewhere...Could it really be that it cant download the update file to the iPhone due to USB problems? Surely Apple has access to fault tolerant file transfer protocols they can use?Sigh... now Im without my primary phone... grrrr... arrrrg... should have waited....Apple maybe you could learn something about ACID TRANSACTIONS and include them into the update process to guarantee either 100% success or 100% abort rollback?
I dont know if this is relevant but now in iTunes on the iPhone page it no longer shows any values at all for the name, capacity, software version or serial number fields which is kind of spooky. Does this mean that I need to take the phone in for service? Is it permanently toast?
MacBookPro iPhone OS 3.0 Update to 3.0 Bricked Phone