We ordered a brand new battery and began what we thought would be a quick replacement process. I inserted the battery and reconnected all the external cables. I rechecked all cables, re-examined the battery, reviewed everything I knew about keyboard PRAM resets, keyboard restarts, finding the power button, etc. I brought in friends who were sure they knew how to replace the battery. There was a solution.
Logic is our friend.
Or to paraphrase When you're convinced you know it all, check again. We were utterly certain we'd done all that was correct. Yet, the machine would not boot. So I began to figure that there MUST be something that we hadn't done. Special thanks to Mr. Geoffrey Buckley of AppleHawk Computers, and his courtesy accepting our call.