First of all: sorry for your loss, man. That really bites.
Dude, I've got 2 of these things on order and now I'm starting to feel like a sucker for not heeding all the signs.
Time to email castle a letter of concern...
Couple questions just to be clear:
-Was this an E-Maxx that has already been run with another system in it, so the radio was already set up?
-Had you tried setting up the ESC via the USB to a PC before hooking it up?
I've got a spektrum, so I'm understandably curious, I guess you could say.