And even when I briefly supply the 3v rail to get the board working again and pair it up with a bluetooth device, I no longer get the I2S audio out any more.

I think that circuit is fried. I sure wish I knew whether it was something I did or if it was just a bad chip or something else bad on the dev board.

Mark, how tough do you think it would be to do the WT32i chip bare, without the dev board? How much supporting circuitry do you think we need for:
- Serial RX/TX
- Line in
- I2S in.

Even willing to drop the line in at this point, even though my whole idea was a fully external box so that folks don't have to mod the inside of their empeg.