Well,
( I got schooled lately on that subject )
I got 12 CS24-TY, they where leases to <insert really big name here> and at the end of the leases they are replaced by newer hardwares and the old ones are sold off to the highest bidder. ( About the same as with fleet of cars. )
My CS-24TY's came with 1.42 iBMC and 3A16 BIOS.
When I bricked my first one "hard", I was aware of the BOOTSTRAP function on the board, that will boot the BOX and enable you to re-flash a good BIOS (3B22 in my case) and from that point I was able to re-flash a good iBMC (1.79).
I found that using the SOCFLASH option in both case is the safest way to go about this upgrade.
( 12 box later and no problem )
That BOOTSTRAP is undocumented to non-Dell personal, but it is a sequence of those 3 jumpers near J22.
No need to get out the solder iron and go all '90 over that MB =D
PS: Sorry if you had a bad experience with those CS24-xx but we had the budget I would have bought more of them.