Eventide support responded to my issues above and I was able to resolve today.  Much appreciated for their help outside business hours/weekend support.     A few things for others:

1. Recovery Mode network install is not currently supported for the recent 3.0.22 [79] firmware update.

2. I was using a USB 3.0 Transcend 16GB thumb drive/formatted correctly with updater files ONLY and it would not load/work.

3. Using the original SanDisk 32GB thumb drive supplied with the H9000 and everything loaded perfectly.  Unit is now working w/proper FW/Gen2 DSPs installed.

4. Make sure to download the latest Emote v3.1.3 that’s not posted/topic in these forums and listed in the Support/Downloads page.

Now that I’m back up next steps are to proceed with re-configuring settings/sessions and further testings.  Hope the above helps others/saves some headaches!