Oh believe you me, I took some deep breaths. I took a shower and cleared my head, and then had a breakthrough. [This is an important lesson I learned from reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". When the job starts to head south, take a break and clear your head before you dig yourself deeper.]

I figured out the problem. The Crutchfield instructions were wrong, or at least meant for a different model. They showed that whole trimpanel was mounted with plastic snap tabs, and that prying with the appropriate force one could pop them out. Unfortunately on my car four of them were not tabs at all, but screwed in from the back side. I had to dissemble the trim around the gear shift and remove the center console to get at the back side to remove the screws. The instructions for the '03 EX model were closer to being correct than the hybrid docs.

So, my solution will be to drill four holes, one in each corner of the trimpanel where the tabs broke off, and put clip-on nuts where the screws used to come through from the back. Then I'll use black screws to re-attach my broken trimpanel. I think it will look ok. If not then I can still buy a new trimpanel.

I have done a lot of work on car dashboards. I used to install radios, computers, carphone kits and other electronics in police cars and fire trucks for a living. I have seen a lot of naked dashboards, but I've never seen one that made me do that much work to get at the radio. Freaking ridiculous. In any case I will be notifying Crutchfield that they need to update their instructions.

Thanks to all for the venting session. I will try to get pics of the innards when I go back to fix the trim panel. I am still waiting for a better cable to finish the job, so I need to open it up again anyway.

This turned out to be a really good ipod solution so those of you who are considering an ipod in a Gen1 might be interested. I'll post pics of that setup too.