How is this motor on a Romotive controlled?
Peter from Romotive here-- I suspect your Romo isn't working because of an issue that we just discovered. The EU restricts the maximum volume level allowed on smartphones. Because of this, the micro controller cannot hear the commands that are being sent to it. Here's a link to the Romotive forum thread about the EU issue with a description on how to fix the issue if you have a jailbroken iPhone. 

We do realize that most people don't want to jailbreak their phones so we're actively working on a fix. We aren't sure yet if we will end up sending new boards with more volume tolerant firmware or whether we will develop an inline audio amplifier. Either way, we're committed to making sure everything works!

Oh and awesome detective work btw! Though I'd rather you be writing apps that make Romo do cool things rather than trying to get him to work ;)