BB Bold 9000 :: Red Flashing Light / Device Really Dead?

Yesterday I was waiting for an important call but needed a shower so I took my phone into the bathroom and put it in a dry safe place where I would hear it ring if need be. It did so I quickly jumped out of the shower, dried hands and answered a message. Few minutes later when back at my desk at home I realized the bold was behaving weird, key presses were not doing the right function, i.e. a press of the back key brought up jk or other letters on the screen etc.

It did not sustain water damage, at worst my hands were merely damp when used so I just figured pop it down for a while and let it 'dry' (it wasn't wet but you know what I mean, its all I could think of) picked it up maybe 15 minutes later and it appeared to have died. Now, its 15 months old (and was a refurbished handset direct from 02 when I got it so its had a hard life) its been bumped, and not long after I got it I broke the screen (LCD bleed) so I had it repaired which forfeited the warranty, also the trackball has been a constant nightmare to me, it stops working in one or more direction regularly.

I've found the solution to this to be to clean the trackball gently with a q-tip dipped in clear alcohol, after some time this usually works, but a couple of months ago I could not get this to work at all so after 2 weeks of a phone that would not scroll left I had the trackball replaced. I now had issues with the trackball not selecting when I push down but this is got around by using the return key or it does sometimes work if you push hard. So, with this new flashing red light failure I took it back to the place that replaced the screen. They kept it for 24 hours and when I went back to collect it they said it was a component failure and beyond economic repair.

Quite truthfully though I got the impression that they actually just couldn't be bothered as it was a hard job. Came home and started researching, other posts I have read lead me to believe that if the LED comes on in any way all is not lost. My computer does not recognize the phone when I try and connect it via USB, although just now I tried again and windows acknowledged that a device had just been plugged in, but the blackberry software still did not detect anything. What can I try now? I am not tech savvy so it will need to be clearly laid out for idiots.