Well, persistence finally paid off! A few hours after yesterday's message telling the Star desk that an international transfer is not defined as a transfer outside your country of origin, I get a message that starts like this:

"Thank you very much for your reply.

I think i owe you an apology on behalf of staralliance book and fly team."

Always nice to get an apology. this agent had booked all the flights and confirmed the price - did say that two of my domestic US flights were no longer available in Z, but that is fine with me. So now I just need to decide if I want to do this for sure and to get it ticketed.