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The two week saga ends on a happy note. Whew!

Made some shop inquiries regarding extraction and found some possibilities, but the logistics were going to be painful, so I went down the road Binkie suggested in his last post.
Drilled it out to a thin walled cylinder. Kept trying heat and bigger Easyout but it just wasn't going to budge. Eventually the Easyout ate through the wall on one side. Ooops. Needed to recenter the hole. Used a 1/8" tungsten carbide cutter bit with the Dremel to get down to threads all the way around. No penetrating oil had gotten to the threads anywhere, it was "galled in place". The Dremel bit cut through stainless like butter. White alum oxide dust flew whenever I got to aluminum threads. Got it all out but the threads were a little damaged where I had gotten off center on the drill, so I decided to go with a helicoil. Drilled and tapped that without a hitch, wound in the helicoil which fit nice and snug, used anti-seize on re-assembly, and successfully got the whole motor buttoned up this weekend. Was able to hand tighten the full 1" of threads before using the torque wrench to tighten it up to spec., so I guess I managed to keep the drill true. I have nothing to base this on, but I actually have more confidence in that 18-8 stainless helicoil than I do in the original bare aluminum threads.

My keys to success? Good advice (thanks all), patience, cobalt drill bits, tungsten carbide Dremel bit, the EXACT correct size drill bit for the helicoil (in my case 29/64 for a 7/16-14 thread bolt), and of course a bit of luck, eventually.

If anyone is interested, I used these online sources when I struck out on all my local sources - reasonable prices and shipping, fast service:
helicoil kit - toolsqwik.com
bolt - boltdepot.com
First time I had tried either source. Kinda hoping I don't need to go back to them anytime soon though.