thanks for the question. I've also received a notification that you posted something about the reset process.
because i can't find the post that you made, the text of the notification was
The reset of the target board is necessary during the upload process. When the chip comes out of reset, the booloader looks to the serial port to see if an upload is in progress. If not, the boot loader runs the sketch that is already there. If there is serial activity the boot loader loads the incoming sketch. Since you are using an Uno as a FTDI there is no DTR signal to generate an auto reset so the reset must be done manually.
I think you're correct, of course. However I'm using the Uno board and not the chip as a usb to serial programmer (it's not an FTDI in fact). The usb-serial chip generates the reset pulse to the right pin, which is mapped by jumper wires to the pin on my board. so I think that the reset pulse would be correctly received and dealt with (and when I'm monitoring the board over the serial connection the reset pulse does reset the chip).
My working assumption is that I've somehow corrupted the chip. so I will try another board and see whether anything different occurs.