Joshbr:
You can unban yourself.
I've done it.
You have to get a new EEprom, and a new stock Xbox hard drive. You can get from the forums on xbox-scene.com. You also should get an Xtender mod (
www.teamxtender.com) which allows you to install up to 3 hard drives in your xbox by vertically extending the case and allowing you to boot up to a specific drive using a 3 button panel on the case extender.
There's stickies (I believe) from reputable sellers on xbox-scene. They rip the eeproms from brand new systems the mod for people who know up front they can't log onto Live, so the EEPRoms are legit. You unlock the drive, use a flashing tool to flash the eeprom, re-lock the drive, and sign on.
The xtender mod allows you to choose which hard drive to boot up to. If you always boot w/ modchip off on drive 1 (your stock drive) then you can still play on live without any issues, even recovering your original name (I did this also).
I've been playing Halo2 for a while now without issue.
It's kind of a pain tho, dunno if you want to go through it, but just so you know, it's possible.
--NipsMG