Sniff.. Domain transfer gone wrong..

[#1]

Well, it started on Friday..
We were looking to transfer in our domain from an external provider, so I raised a ticket asking whether I could configure the DNS records on the PN side of things before we changed the primary nameservers.
IMHO, this would have made a smooth transfer - set up the new domain on the PN DNS servers, then affect the transfer of the nameservers themselves.  A minor blip over 72 hours as the DNS propagated, but everything would have been smooth.
Unfortunately, I was told that "The first step in a domain transfer is to change the nameservers to NS1/NS2.FORCE9.NET"
Okay, I thought.. There is a weekend approaching, and I should be able to do all the required changes over the weekend, ready for Monday.  So, I switch the nameservers and raise a ticket asking PN to expedite the process, so I could at least get in and start setting up the MX records asap.
On Sunday, I was finally able to get in to change the MX records, (and I also raised a ticket to get the www record pointed at the ccgi server).  Great, I thought...
So I come into work today...
Inbound mail is down.  DNS resolution of the domain direct from NS1.FORCE9.NET returns SERVFAIL.  Okay, I thought.  This is a bit of a problem, but at least people will be getting a bounce message..
So, I try outbound email.  relay.plus.net is returning a 451 Temporary Error.
www  is not resolving..
So, I raise a ticket begging someone to fix it ASAP.  This is quite a major problem as a lot of our work comes in via email.
And I get a response saying that the zone files have been refreshed and should fix themselves *within the next 6-8 hours*
COME ON GUYS!
I have a new suggestion for you - How about allowing a DNS entry to be added to the portal, and perhaps a "test" DNS server so that before we start an inbound domain transfer, we can configure all the records and check that it is set up correctly before we change the NS records?
Other than that, I have a VMWare image that's borked and I have to go fix it. 
Mondays, happy mondays...
Barry
p.s. PN username: ablebox, domain: ablebox.com.  could someone take a peek? pretty plx..

[#2]

Hi,
It looks like the domain is just waiting on the zone file being created, this should be done in the next few hours, until then inbound and outbound mail would be rejected.
The way our domain control system works is that it will only create the records for the domain once the name servers have been changed. If you try and transfer a domain in which hasn't changed the nameservers it will fail on the whois and not create the zone file until the nameservers have changed.
If it did it the other way around and created the zonefile even of the domain hadn't had the nameservers changed then you could get into the situation of adding domains for hosting only when the owner didn't want them transferring in. The nameserver change is like a safety net that we need to see before we can transfer a domain otherwise we've little proof that the person asking for a transfer is the owner of the domain.