Thank you everyone for the replies, hopefully I can get a solution worked out of this whole thing.

So let me get this straight, I can use the USB thumb-drive method and bypass these problems as long as I already have an OSX environment?

Even I think this is a stupid question, but do I have to have a previous OSX install on the computer I'm trying to install on, or can I use my other haxintosh, or someone elses mac, etc etc?

Thanks again to you all...