I think my issue was that the phone was no longer "logged into" the Google account. I had turned on 2-factor auth and this phone+Android 2.3.4 could not deal with it - it refused to login - the workaround was to build another google account without 2-factor, then it all started working - push messages flowing.
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I think my issue was that the phone was no longer "logged into" the Google account. I had turned on 2-factor auth and this phone+Android 2.3.4 could not deal with it - it refused to login - the workaround was to build another google account without 2-factor, then it all started working - push messages flowing.