I FOUND a solution
Nothing like dredging up a 2+ year old thread, eh?
BUT ... I finally got the guts to try something I was tempted to do in early June of 2016.
See, I really liked my Pro-651. I liked it so much that after I bricked it I bought a WS1040 to replace it.
So my thought was, "Run the Radio Shack updater with the WS1040 hooked up. Hit the "Test" button and it will find it. Swap the WS1040 and Pro-651 and hit "Update".
I never tried it though; I was really worried that I would brick ANOTHER scanner.
Until tonight. Tried to upgrade the Pro-651. Got the flashing/beeping/can't talk to scanner.
So I hooked up the WS1040 and ran the Radio Shack updater again. I got a message saying (to paraphrase) "This is for 2.9, and you're running 2.9". Swapped the two scanners, hit "OK" and the "Update" button was active (not greyed out).
I hit the button, and my Pro-651 said "updating" and I got the progress bar on my PC. Waited a bit ...
... and it WORKED. I'm listening to my Pro-651 (with all the scan lists from 2016) as I type.
So if you have a bricked Pro-651, see if you can find someone who has a good one, or a good WS1040, and give it a try