I want to wipe my device and start over fresh. What is the process to do this?

Thanks!

reflash eMMC and rootfs, in that order.

See http://wiki.maemo.org/Flasher

Note: If you want to save something from the device, do it before flashing it...

Where do I get the eMMC and rootfs image?

Sorry for being such a newb. I want to reflash it since it seems something in the multimedia area has taken a dump.

Oops! nevermind, I found them. Had to dig for it. Thanks!!

I found the images, and the firmware updates with no issues. But I can't reset the eMMC using the vanilla file. It keeps saying it can't find the USB connection. And then sometimes it will look like it is working on the phone as I can see the faint dots moving, but then it stops on the second one and I have to pull the battery to reset the phone.

Wiping this phone clean seems harder than it should be.

If you follow the instructions you shouldn't get any dots, as those imply the phone is booting not going into firmware update mode.

Did you follow:

1. Switch off the Maemo device
2. Press and hold down the 'u' key
3. Connect a USB cable between the Maemo device and host PC while holding down the 'u' key
4. When the USB cable is connected, it powers the Maemo device and sets it to flashing mode
5. When the USB icon appears in the upper right-hand corner, the Maemo device is in flashing mode
6. Release the 'u' key

This is the first phone i have had that there is information and help at hand, to wipe it clean.

Yep. Did that. Worked fine with the OS bin, but it is not working with the vanilla bin file. This is what I get on the cmd screen:
Image 'mmc', size 241163 kB
version RX-51_2009SE_1.2009.41-1.VANILLA
USB device found at bus-0, device address \\.\libusb0-0001--0x0421-0x0105.
Found device RX-51, hardware revision 2101
Nolo version 1.4.14
version of sw-release: RX-51_2009SE_3.2010.02-0.002_PR_002
Booting device into flash mode
Suitable USB device not found, waiting.

I've tried starting the flasher first, then plugging in the phone, plugging in the phone then starting the flasher and I get the same result. If I try the OS bin, I have no issue. It sees it right away and starts patching.

Any other suggestions? Am I doing something wrong?

I had the same issue flashing under Windows - I ended up using a bootable Linux CD and flashing from there (it worked first time). Some people have also reported success under Windows by just retrying repeatedly until it eventually works.