Wow Fred... you have definitely gone the distance on this UNO. First question, did you notify the vendor that your UNO was not bootloaded? Sometimes they are accommodating to this issues and replace it (if you did not release the blue smoke from the chips...).
Second question, do you have access to a programmer (other than the parallel you made) of another Arduino?
And finally, when you send the sketch, is there any activity on the UNO Rx/Tx lights?
If the D13 light is not blinking after you burn the UNO bootloader to the Atmega, you did not successfully program it. If you can find another Arduino, you can use Nick's programmer to help troubleshoot your broken Arduino.
http://www.gammon.com.au/forum/bbshowpost.php?bbsubject_id=11635