Spankey my guess is the locked saved files are locked to hardware itself. When I installed the 500GB HDD on his 60GB unit, the backup tool transferred all of his games saves over. The 360 had a similar issue except that as long as you logged into XBL, all of your content was available to you even if your system had been replaced or if you simply attached your HDD to a friend's console. Unfortunately if Live went down you were screwed if you weren't using your original hardware.
MS finally released a method of transferring the license of your content to a new console last year. You can only do it once every year though. I'm sure Sony will do something similar at some point. Won't do me any good, but I hope it helps out other PS3 owners. I remember reading a thread about a PS3 owner losing some of their save files when they got YLOD. I didn't comprehend how until now.
