I'm sorry to say that after playing mix and match with my buddies Powerbook/Battery/PowerSupply for an evening, we pretty much isolated the problem to the PowerBrick. Don't know why it went bad, but it did. I'm going to have to agree with all the reviews/comments that say the PowerBrick is too fragile. On a personal note, I am very dissappointed with Apple for having such a weak link in their chain.
I have replaced the brick with a Kensington A0532 70Watt universal power supply for Apple Laptops and iPods. It works like a charm, and cost the same as a brick, $80. It is white, and comes with 2 different sized laptop plugs, and an adaptor to charge an iPod directly. It has a very long DC cord, but a very very short (1 inch?) AC cord. It works well for my purposes.
A friend of mine has a Targus 90Watt adaptor for the Mac (A14US?) which he loves. His was $120 but came with DC in plugs for the car and airplane.
