I've been given the task of getting 3 regional sites on the same topic
that used to be duplicates and got penalized back into Google "quality
spec".

I have repeatedly asked to have dead links from the old, dup sites
removed to no avail. There are links in the Google index that have
been dead and gone for 6 to 8 months and try as I might with robots.txt
directives and Google site maps I cannot seem to get these pages
removed and the new content indexed or ranked.

Is there any hope for a domain with a Google "Scarlett Letter"?

I am hesitant to request the entire site(s) be removed from Google as I
know it will be out for 6 months and may never get back in.

Is there a 12 step program?

Bueller, Bueller, Bueller, ......Anybody?.... Anybody?

one step program allows for removal of specified pages from the index
and cache.
http://www.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=364