I finally got it worked out. I had to run an older version of the same [profanity removed]  file. The version from 5-9-12 marked (A08) does NOT seem to work on a fully updated 2008R2 x64 or fully updated 2003 ENT x86. BUT, the version dated 10-7-08 marked (A09) did work. BOTH of those exe's are tagged 5.0.0-0072 and the only difference I see is the exe is named differently with different release dates. Imagine me being soooo foolish to think that the most updated version of the exe would be the one to use. I did not catch the difference previously and question why the "newer" one has an A08 tag and the "older" one has an A9 tag. I am not sure if the engineers could ever recreate what I experienced, but possibly my situation will help others in the future since my guess is in the coming months many more will be migrating their systems in order to move remaining systems away from 2003 toward 2008 and 2012.
There is a thread about this here, support-forums/servers/f/906/t/19469416 but the answer contains some wrong information, and no way to add to that thread. The flash posted that the firmware can be found at support/drivers/us/en/04/DriverDetails/Product/poweredge-2950?driverId=2RPK0&osCode=WS8R2&fileId=2974571956,  but that is incorrect. The page is there but the firmware link goes to an error 500 page. The firmware listed on that page is different than what is listed on downloads.dell.com/published/pages/poweredge-2950.html#Drivers The problem i am having is that after updating bios, esm/bmc etc, I try to run the firmware update, it does the inspection and reports an old version and asks if I want to update to 5.2.2.0072 I conform, and then a split second later it says it is done, and does not ask for a reboot, (which I know it should) Eeven after rebooting it is still on the old version 5.0.2-0003 The OS is a fresh install of 200 R2 X64 with all updates. The exe I am running is from the page I mentioned at support/home/us/en/19/drivers/DriversDetails?productCode=poweredge-2950&driverId=WJG5R SAS-RAID_Firmware_WJG5R_WN32_5.2.2-0072_A08.exe I have updated firmware on Percs for many years and have never seen this behavoir so it has me a little perplexed. I have rebooted and tried a number of times and it is always the same result. 
Perc 5 firmware will NOT update on a 2950