Well, I'll be a monkeys uncle!!! I found my old core sitting behind my bench, where the bin was! I class that as a sign my friends! Anyway, I thought I'd give the old girl another shot at revival. Hmm, 5 minutes and its alive again. I must have grown a more level head about the approach, although I am using a newer laptop this time, still with windows 10, so who knows.
Threads followed to get her alive again.
Basic rundown goes:
Put spark in DFU mode.
Install the DFU driver with "Zadig" application.
Install the Node.js 32bit tools
Install the OpenSSL 32bit tools
Install Python 2.7.6
Run "npm install -g particle-cli"
Created a folder in C: called "C:\firmware-spark_2"
Added my path to the environment "set PATH "%PATH%,C:\firmware-spark_2"
Made sure I could see the Spark Core with "Particle list"
Extracted all files and firmwares into my path that i set. Including the contents of the "Build" folder for the core firmware from github
Backed up my device, just in case "dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 1 -s 0x00020000:0x00022000 -U backup_frfirmware.bin"
Flashed the newer firmware to the Core "dfu-util -d 1d50:607f -a 1 -s 0x00020000:leave -D core-firmware.bin"
After the final command, to do the old factory reset (MODE + RESET).
Sorry to drag this old thread up, but just in case someone is searching the interwebs for a solution still, my quest is over in a positive way. 
Many happy's again!