^ This was finally an "alls well that ended well".
The owner got pretty frustrated with the lack of response and beat the bushes, and finally I was able to get some key guys on the phone. After some long talks, one of the engineers sent me some photos of the harness that he "just shot yesterday for another customer with similar problems". I took a look at those and realized the connector for the new motor had two leads swapped (Yellow and Green). Once I swapped them back, we were all better, and I called Mark and got the thing out of my driveway.
They were clearly a company with good intentions, but -no- thought to after-sale support when they launched. It seems like I just saw an announcement where they have set up some sort of service network partnering with some bike repair service. I'll see if I can find it. They did cover my costs for the repair, but not without some resistance.
As far as the machine goes, I'm not particularly impressed. It was one of the scariest rides I've had at over 25mph on just about anything, especially on a bumpy road. Turning it at speed is twitchy at best, yet turning it running slow takes some muscle.
Not one part of it was designed with service or repair in mind, in fact, several designs look like they were trying to make it as hard to service as possible, in the interest of appearance. One of my not-so-favorite habits of (bad) engineering. It takes up most of the width of a lane, around here anyway (Boston), but can't keep up with traffic. Having ridden a bicycle to Boston on my commute for over 12 years, I can't imagine riding this on the same route and surviving.
The whole experience made me re-examine (and learn some lessons) about Kickstarter from both perspectives - the backer as well as the backee. Take a look at those links above. Those lessons I hope will benefit me when I launch my own Kickstarter project next month...