I did solder the headers on but belive me I've scrutinised them to make sure there aren't any solder bridges.
I've gone back to the suppliers feedback and looked at the negative feedback. Seen several other accounts describing the same kind of boot loop issues, those people have more technical knowledge than me and pointed in the direction of very poor voltage regulators resulting in brown out events and boot loops. This might make sense why I can do a simple blink sketch and get the mac address of the esp8266, but as soon as I try to use the chip properly there is insufficient power? Some did point to the memory too.
The supplier is asking me to return them but as I'm in NZ the postage will be such I think I'll just chalk this down to a learning experience to buy official when it comes to the meat of a project.