Don't assume anything. Always be a skeptic about it all. But also don't say everyone is lying. It's like saying all liars are lawyers. There may be a chance that something went wrong. I've had situations where a program ran and got corrupted while running, but when I ran it again nothing happened. If the contacts aren't exactly the same with a retail cart, then something could have disconnected during execution, after the sanity check, and caused the bricking.
I don't own a Gateway, as my 3DS firmware is the latest version, but I know that it's a common problem with flash carts, having trouble connecting to the contacts in the handheld, and sometimes if bumped hard enough can cause the contacts to disconnect. I have first hand experience with a Supercard DS2, and those things are a little thick.
Needless to say, I doubt Gateway would intentionally have a suicide code in their loaders, but I wouldn't put it past companies who would try to squash competition based on their hard work, and not think the ramifications through, or possible collateral damage. Again, I don't think Gateway would do it on purpose, but I'm not going to close my mind off to the possibilities. I want to see this thing through and have definitive confirmation with evidence that can be reproduced easily.
Edit: json: They said something about it bricking after a certain amount of time. So I don't know if it means much later if it still doesn't match or something else. But still your test is a good way to check, unless others end up with bricked systems too as a result. Would be a terrible situation, but unless you were lying, it sounds like the problem with the bricking is somewhere else. Good job.
