Are you installing 2008 or 2008 R2? If 2008, are you installing 32-bit or 64-bit (just to make sure we are working with the right drivers)? 2008 R2 has the PERC 6 drivers built-in.
If 2008x64, the latest driver is 2.24, and must be extracted before use (previous link was to 2.23):
http://ftp.dell.com/FOLDER89865M/5/DELL_MULTI-DEVICE_A03_R210510.exe
When you create the RAID 5, you need to also check the Advanced and Initialize options.
2008 does not have an "F6" prompt like previous versions ... it sounds like you probably know the difference (2008+ uses the Load Driver link), but your reference to F6 in your original post just prompted me to make sure you were familiar with the method of loading storage drivers in 2008 ... AND that we are indeed trying to install 2008 and not 2003.
An alternative would be to try installing using the OpenManage installation utility (SMTD - Systems Management Tools and Documentation) ... boot to this DVD first, choose OS Install, then walk through the prompts:
http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/19/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-2950?driverId=1WNJW&osCode=LHS64&fileId=3084704924
When you say you "completely wiped ALL previous con[]troller configs, even set everything back to factory defaul[t]", what exactly did you do?