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Did this get resolved? I'm seeing your home-page indexed and ranking now. I'm not seeing any kind of redirect to an alternate URL at this point (either as a browser or as GoogleBot). If you 301'ed to an alternate URL and then rel=canonical'ed back to the source of the 301, that could definitely cause problems. It's sending a pretty strong mixed-signal. In that case you'd probably want to 302 or use some alternate method. Redirects for the home-page are best avoided, in most cases.

Google does not like what you are doing! Google wants to have the same content on a page  (that rules out option a) Option B sounds better. but make sure the copy is still on the page. Just vary the content you are presenting based on the user. (this is called the liquid internet)

Yes, like Keri said. The 301 might not be working. It's actually normal for google to index 301ed domains. Ive seen it more than a handful of times. So it's probably a matter of time before it disappears.

Yeah, I tend to agree with Maximilian and Mike - I'm not clear on the use-case scenario here and, technically, pages 1 and 2 aren't duplicated. Rel=canonical probably will still work, in most cases, and will keep page 2 from looking like a duplicate (and from ranking), but I'd like to understand the situation better. If Google did honor the canonical tag on page 2, then the duplication between pages 2 and 3 shouldn't be a problem. I'm just thinking there may be a better way.

Thanks for the clarification Everett.