Wifi shield factory reset/debugging?

My official Wifi shield was working fine last week, now it refuses to connect to any network. The only change in our IT infrastructure was that the DHCP server that the shield was pulling from has been taken offline. I have reflashed the firmware on the shield (per http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/WiFiShieldFirmwareUpgrading) in hopes that it would reset any stored data from the old DHCP (ip lease info, etc) and connect to the new one, but that had no impact. Is there any data about the previous connections stored on the shield/a way to reset that info?

Alternately, I tried using the FTDI debugging port on the shield (per http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/WiFiShield32USerial) but was unable to get any response from the shield when I sent commands. All of the other forum posts that I have seen related to the debugging port have similar issues (either no response or it is garbled) and I haven't seen any with a solution.

Any suggestions?

-Scott

I resolved the problem with the connection - it was a problem with a script IT had running on the DHCP server to reserve a fixed IP for the shield. Still interested in getting the debugging port working if anyone has suggestions.

-Scott