While updating the wireless SSID the router went to the 'wait 25 seconds' page before it returns to the setting page but never did. 

 It is now stuck in a semi crashed mode where wifi is showing up yet there is no way to reset the modem or gain access to it. 

Even plugged in directly, the router will provide a bogus IP address and will not allow to get back to the admin panel in hopes of resetting it.

Nothing has worked, and I'm now with a dead router (or so it seems) - why does linksys not provide a simple USB port in order to reflash the hardware in such case?

This is frustrating..... If anyone has any solution/ideas

It doesn't need a USB port to flash the firmware.  Done via the ethernet cable when connected.  You need to hard reset the router.  Press and hold the reset button for 30 seconds and release.  Wait 30 seconds and power cycle now.  Connect via your wired computer to 192.168.1.1 user name blank, password admin and reconfigure it.

Thanks for the tip Sabretooth - The issue seems to be that the router has crashed in the middle of a conf reboot So it's stuck.

The reset seems to be a software reset, that only gets triggered when the firmware hasn't crashed. Right now I'm stuck with the power light blinking. the Hard reset as you describe doesn't do anything at all!

Any other option/solutions?

The usb comment was to provide a way to flash the firmware in cases like this one, where the router is 'stuck' in whatever mode.

Thanks for the post though!