I THINK I HAVE THIS FIGURED OUT... God I hope so.
Been reading and tinkering with the remains of the MC. There is an adjustment on the rod I wasn't aware of, not only can you adjust the turn buckle to make it the correct length to meet up with your pedal, but the rod coming out of the MC itself can be turned. Mine seems to be turned WAY in and I think put it at the very end of its travel at the "relaxed" position. If you look at the pic below, I think it may have been in so much that it was just shy of the rear ports outlet. Then when you pressed the pedal it only stroked very little till it passed/blocked that port entirely (which is why I could get very little fluid to whatever was connected to that port). And I think that would explain the rock hard pedal, it was almost at full stroke at the relaxed position. Also explains why it bent the rod. Two things, first the rod was inside the MC so far, only 3-4 threads made it to the turnbuckle, second it could only stroke a half inch or so till it hit max. So the force of me stomping on it at max stroke with only a few threads holding it on added up to carnage. So, the question is... Was I supposed to adjust that rod during the install and I'm again...a dumbass? Or, do you typically not mess with that rod, and I'm just the lucky one that got one out of whack? Of course, this isn't concrete, but seems to make sense and by playing with the MC, again looks like what's going on. So GreenDraggin, I'd think in a correct install you wouldn't have to worry about breaking the rod like I did. Any thoughts?