for archives' sake, i've finally figured it out.
its like this.
there are at least three ports involved, 2 for flosc and 1 (or even 2) for pd.
if you start flosc on machine <flosc.org> with: java Gateway 3001 3002 you then have flosc listening to port 3001 for udp clients and listening to 3002 for XMLsocket cleints (from flash).
you can start pd on <anymachine.org> with: dumpOSC 5555 my mistake was i tried to start pd on the same machine <flosc.org> using the same port, 3001, thinking it would be a client listening to packets from flosc.
then with the flash stuff, you just open and XML socket on <flosc.org> port 3002 and send commands aimed at <anymachine.org> port 5555
additionally, you could then use sendOSC in pd with [connect flosc.org 3001] to send osc packets back to all your flash clients
thats it. seems basic enough, but i f*cked it up - august.