Joel,
First off, I hate to hear that you are in this situation. I can't provide a solution or work-around for this as none, other than what Dennis suggested, exists. I would like to try to answer some of your questions though.
"Why create a program called Vault which can be easily deleted in one foul swoop by a lamen fool ie. ME"
The whole thought process behind Vault is security from the CAD users. When implemented in a network environment, typically, the CAD users do not have access to the server system that houses the ADMS and Vault Filestore (the 000 folders). The reason that the folder names and file names contained in those "000" folders are so unexplanatory is so that no one, without knowledge of what they're looking at" can gain access to the server and deliberately delete those files, thereby hurting the company - think of a ticked off employee who just got their pink slip, i.e. sabotage.
Now, as far as accidental deletion, well, that is what the backups are for. I would hope that during the Vault Implementation your company went through, that the Reseller AE who did it, ran through the maitenance of the Vault Filestore with your company's IT dept. Basically, IT does not ever need to do any maintenance on the Vault Filestore as it is controlled/done by a Vault Administrator which is a CAD User. The maintenance is done remotely through the CAD users Vault Explorer interface and it is done via an intelligent purge command so that no files are removed, only versions of those files.
Again, I hate to hear that this has happened to you and I wish that there was a work-around or it, but, no such luck.
It is a good question of what your position is as, this type of maintenance, from a Vault standpoint, should only be done by the CAD user from the CAD station and not the server in IT. If you are IT, were you informed of any of the Vault setup and maintenance procedures that were outlined during the implementation by the reseller (a valid question in your current position)? Or was your implementation done by your company without the help or guidance of your Autodesk Reseller?
My only advice that I could give is to try Dennis's suggestion and hope that it retrieves all of the lost data.
Message was edited by: KCooper