Upgrade to 2.2.1 crashed and now my phone dead. Help iPhone 3G

First-off - my phone has never been jailbroken; I hoped that I would avoid such situations by refraining from such extremes! I am also running the latest Leopard incarnation natively on a Mac.
I was prompted to upgrade the firmware of my 3G earlier, to 2.2.1. Lovely. I have never had a problem upgrading my first generation iPhone nor my 3G. I dived straight in and waited. A few minutes into the software upgrade iTunes said there was an error - upon cancellation and re-connection I was informed that my iPhone was in recovery mode. No great shakes?! Unfortunately, I tried to restore and it crashed. I tried again. It crashed.
I consulted many forums including those here at Apple and followed their instructions - yet my iPhone remains bricked. I have restarted my Mac. Deleted Mobile Device. Deleted iTunes - installed iTunes. Set-up a new user on my mac, etc.
I have reached my tether and would appreciate any advice. Failing that I would at least like to hear from someone in the same situation; perhaps we could join forces and storm the nearest Apple store!
Kind regards
Damon
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.5.6) Intel