I tried a couple of redirect strategies including the .htacess file without luck so I ended up just blocking the old paths via robots, not the best approach but it works minus the link juice effect.

Dump all your old links into a Speadsheet somewhere as they won’t necessarily be appearing in Webmaster tools.

Try to get a few of the important ones changed

also, my “20 syllables” comment referred to what i submitted before the “http://” was automatically prepended.
my point is that “www.” is a speed bump when communicating your domain name.

http://www.searchengineoptimization.net/ is 40 characters and http://www.searchengineoptimization.net is 20 syllables – wow!
i would suggest dropping four unnecessary characters and half the syllables (www.) since you are essentially starting from scratch.

since the hostname part of a url is case-insensitive you should use pascal casing whenever using your domain in a message – for branding and readability purposes – SearchEngineOptimization.net

you should also consider acquiring a short, brandable domain and rolling your own url shortener for social media purposes.
(email me if you would like some suggestions.)
for example, a url such as http://www.searchengineoptimization.net/2009/12/28/guide-to-a-hopefully-successful-301/ leaves only 52 characters for messaging and retweet space.

i would add a few of important points to your list for your faithful readers.
these don’t apply to your case as it appears you are already handling this well:
- make sure your domain and url canonicalization is in order – don’t forget to check for wildcard subdomains, ip address and default port specification.
- verify that all of your internal linking (and sitemap.xml for that matter) are referring to your new canonical domain.
- a sitewide redirect might be a good time to bite the bullet and consider going extensionless.

finally, it’s a good idea to investigate the backlink profile of a “new” domain and see if there are any “useful” inbound links you might want to take advantage of as well as anything troublesome you might want to be aware of.
there could also be some helpful clues in the “wayback machine”.

Looks like you’ve got it under control, but why not highlight for your readers exactly what back links you prefer to your new domain, in case someone wants to help Google see the value of the new domain?