Would this setup work?

[Motopreserve]

Please tell me, Master Motopreserve, Where did I go wrong, aside from spending my hard earned money on VERY expensive toys?

Well, I'm certainly no master - in fact far from it

I had the same type of issue with my motor as you did. Same description. Turned out it was an cheap HK PDB issue. Power wasn't getting to the ESC correctly/fully turned out to be the culprit. Wired up a squid and the whole chain fired to life. Motor was still good, ESC was still good.

Not sure I understand which "Light comes on, then out."