This is an update for people following the thread, I'll probably start
a new thread to address the solution since RIM and Cingular both
failed to help me and both seemed intrigued by my solution (it's
always a bad sign when you solve the problem youself while on the
phone with support and they perk up and start asking for details of
what you did)

My second attempt and contacting Cingular support on this issue at
least led to a end, although not a very pleasant of conclusive one. So
I was told directly by Cingular and indirectly by RIM that A.) this is
a known and common problem related to recently manufactured Blackberry
Pearl 8100c handsets and B.) Their workaround is attempt "master
reset" and if that fails to work then return the device to the store -
or- if it's past 30 days send it in for warranty replacement.

So to clarify the Blackberry Pearl's "wipe handset" feature does not
restore the device to its out-of-the-box, "virgin" state and RIM
support confirmed there is no feature on the Blackberry Pearl to
accomplish this. So your only hope should you run into this problem is
to restore the device from a backup. That is assuming, you took the
effort to make a backup prior to any of the problems, if you didn't
you have no choice except to return the handset..... and that's a very
significant weakness of the Blackberry Pearl in comparison to other
SmartPhones running: PalmOS, Windows Mobile and Symbian OS, they all
have a true out-of-box reset feature built into the hardware... and
their desktop sync software doesn't eat the phones firmware either.

When you get your near Pearl to insure this doesn't happen, just avoid
the Blackberry Desktop Manager on the CD-ROM that came with the phone
and instead go to Cingular's website and download the current
version.... make sure you make a backup using Blackberry Desktop
Manager prior to: loading applications, media or syncing the phone
with your PC and make sure you let Blackberry Desktop Manager install
the OS system update to the phone (it will do this automatically).

Should be noted: Cingular and RIM failed to properly support this
issue. I truly believe they (RIM advanced support) were updating their
support information database with this information as I was providing
it to them and that's just sad, because they acknowledged it was a
known problem.....