Ok, it has been a few days now and the problems have all been resolved!

Here is the rest of the story and a recommendation to anyone that has a problem with their Command unit!

My independent MB shop ran the diagnostics again and figured out that while all of the fiber cables were intact, the Command unit apparently could not see any responses from the audio amp, nor the CD player on the Fiber Optic loop. They connected my audio amp and CD player to another car and they performed well!

The conclusion was that the Command unit was STILL not working properly.

I found a Factory Refurbished Command unit for outright purchase (no core charge) on eBay at a company called Midwest Electronics for 695.95.
These guys are THE Authorized Blaupunkt Factory Service Center for the USA.
They also offered to completely refurbish my Command unit for 495.00 with WARRANTY!

The representative at Midwest said that the module that had been swapped into my Command unit was probably not compatible with my unit. There are lots of variables and MANY different versions of firmware of these modules.

I wanted out of the services previously performed at the local Audio Shop, but they wanted the car back so that they could do more troubleshooting and run up a bill that was even more than the 475.00 I had already paid them for a PARTIALLY repaired Command unit. At this point, my confidence in them had gone to ZERO and I just wanted my money back and wanted out! They felt that I owed them SOMETHING since they had spent so many hours on the problem and didn't want to refund my money.

Then I remembered that I didn't need the old unit back at all since I could buy one outright for a reasonable price, so I GAVE him my old Command unit for his time. He refunded the 475.00 and we were both happy!

My refurbished unit arrived today by UPS. It was in a sealed box with a Genuine Mercedes Parts sticker on it. I installed it myself in just a few minutes and everything came back to life! The "default" configuration on the refurbished unit matched my car (without the phone and without the voice command unit) so it was not necessary to use the Mercedes diagnostics to configure the unit to my car at all!

I have learned some lessons here, but hopefully, this will help someone else with their Command unit problems in the future!

I HIGHLY recommend these guys:

Midwest Electronics in Franklin Park, IL
1-800-562-5978

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02 S500
92 500SL
92 400E (Sold)
87 300E (Sold)
83 300D Turbo (Sold)
75 300D (Sold)
74 240D (Sold after 20 years)