[Q] Badly bricked G2 - no recovery, no download mode, bootlooping LG Logo

I already snagged another phone so this isn't a dire emergency "HELP!", but I would like to learn all I can from this mistake, and maybe resurrect the phone.

My VZW G2 is badly bricked. It turns on, shows the LG logo, sits for 20 seconds, then reboots and repeats. I can't get into download mode, recovery, and definitely not normal boot. It doesn't say anything about security boot error or fast boot on the screen before rebooting. So far, I haven't been able to get to a point where the pc will recognize it... not showing up in device manager at all (no Unknown devices)

Here are the newb steps I took to get here:
tot flashed back to vs98010b
Rooted,
Backed up stock recovery
Flashed custom recovery (twrp2.6.3.2 > philzcwm6.19.3 > philzcwm6.19.7)
Took vs98011a ota update (yes, intentionally)
Now I'm in a recovery bootloop, no biggie - I wanted to see what the ota puts where.
Pulled what I wanted
- Now the newb mistakes -
Decided I wanted to do the ota, so I flashed the the stock recovery back... while in recovery
Rebooted - LG logo bootloop

I know flashing stock recovery was my big mistake, but I'd like to know why -
1. does something else need fixed to go back to stock recovery?
2. we can't dd the stock recovery while booted in recovery? (didn't even think about this when doing it since you can flash a recovery zip from recovery, but I guess thats different)
3. the stock recovery img must have been corrupted?
4. something else...

I'm counting this as an expensive lesson, so I would like to learn as much as I can from it.

shaungregg said:

Try this thread http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2582142

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

I did look at that thread but didn't read thru all 38 pages. I'll go ahead and start reading thru it to see if someone in my spot was helped. Key difference between my scenario and that thread is that I have nothing showing up in device manager - I'm not getting the qhsusb_bulk device in device manager which is crucial for that to work.

I'm hoping someone knows how to force it to some other mode besides download mode and recovery since those don't work.