Sounds scary but I believe it is just coincidence. Either the HW was really faulty or the "wouldn't reflash, wouldn't anything" part is not true. initfs flasher reflashes just initfs partition which may indeed render device temporarily unbootable, but in such state reflashing is still possible via Nokia flasher (just like when flashing bad linux kernel which is run even before initfs). While I understand that your experience is pretty discouraging, I still suggest to try to install bootmenu again.