I've kind of decided to view the UMTU series as non-canonical the moment a mini-series starts with a character that had been used. It seems that during the course of writing those issues Bendis simply wrote down whatever had either come to his mind, what had been playing on the television right then, or an examination of whatever his baby had just upchucked on his shirt. Since there wasn't much of an attempt to flesh these back stories out, I just treat them as window dressing, ultimately irrelavent, especially once a mini-series appears that changes the course of an origin or makes it entirely different. For example, I could be wrong here, but I don't believe it has ever been suggested that Tony Stark's genuis was due to anything other then being a very bright guy. Card is suggesting that the man's brain is actually spread out over the man's entire body, thus also alluding to the idea that he uses the excess material much more efficently then eveyone else. A nifty idea, I think.
Hell, the only thing I'm overly curious about is why Tony is no longer blue. Everything else doesn't matter, insofar as I'm concerned.