Good story, Mike!
I'm wondering what kind of GPS unit you're using? I had a lot of the "got off the trail" situations in my limited hiking experience, but even my simplistic yellow Garmin eTrex had the "track back" feature, which usually allows to resolve such a problem in no time (just half a dozen clicks of buttons). You're right, it doesn't matter how user-friendly (or fool proof) a modern mapping GPS features are, but the RTFM ("read that freaking manual" ) rule must be obeyed. Know your hardware!