Is this little thing really what's destroyed my gardens?

[z_willus_d]

The Background
I planted out a little over 2 months back (used walls of water to protect the little ones). For at least a good month, I had the healthiest looking tomato plants I've ever worked with. They were super green, blossom heavy, and best of all, when I used my vibrating toothbrush to rattle the flowers, at least half of the viable looking ones set fruit a several days later. So things were looking great, and then around 3 weeks ago...

The Decline
... I began to noticed yellowing of the leaves of some of the larger plants. The leaves weren't always the lowest, often midriff the plant. I'd been spraying weekly with a combination of AgriFos(Exel-LG)+Actinovate (and also Green Cure fungicide). I didn't notice any obvious pest issues, but nonetheless every couple weeks I sprayed with an insecticidal soap (also BT).

A week later the problem had become more apparent, affecting nearly all of my plants in my raised beds (these have freshly mixed grow medium). I culled out many stems/leaf branches to the order of many lbs of plant matter. I also started to spray with Daconil on something more like a 4 or 5 day cycle (in addition to the former fungicides).

In this last week and a half , I've noticed that many of my booms are bronzing/yellowing and just not looking viable. But, there are still some lovely, yellow ripe flowers, usually a few on every truss. Here's what I noticed recently...

The Baddie Bugger
I was out midday vibrating my blossoms (most of which BTW are just falling off now), and as I was cupping the blossom to get a better angle, I noticed on vibration that a spawn of little, slender bugs spewed out onto the palm of my hand. They looked about the size of dust, and I think I could have easily mistaken them for that, or pollen, had I not cupped the blossom and noticed them scurrying all around on my hand. As I was inspecting the ten or so crawling there, they one after another just took flight and disappeared into the ethos.

That got me curious, so I began cupping the rest of my blossoms while vibrating. Around three hours later, I had vibrated the remaining 20 or so plants. (It usually only takes 10-min. to do this, but I was very focused on finding and attempting to squish these bugs.) I found that every alive, sex-ready blossom was essentially infested with these small insects. I could obliterate them on my hand, well mostly. That's what I spent all that time doing. The next day, I vibrated again, and lo, they were all back in the blossoms. And again, and again, again...

Somewhere along the way, I started spraying after vibrating in hopes of catching the bugs outside their homes, but they're always back the next day. I started spraying with Monterey Spinosad, then Take Down garden spray, then Green light Neem Oil, then AzaMax, and most recently a 1/2 diluted strength of the first three. I even gave a half-strength spraying of Sevin, but my honey noticed I bought it and blew a gasket after reading about its health concerns, so back to H.D. it went.

What I've noticed is that whereas I used to get 50% + fruit set on my blossom trusses, I'm not getting 0%. Yes, that's right, 0% -- I've got so many raw, yellowing truss wires, I'm ready to cry. (Ok, there have been some cherries setting, but that's it and at a much lower rate.) I've noted that my yellow flowers are actually turning brown on their tips, presumably from the insect infestation. Now, my plants are also more stressed by the disease that I presume these bugs are infecting them with, so that might also be why the flowers aren't setting. My plants are strange looking. They have a nice set of fruit on their 1st and 2nd trusses, then sparsely set fruit on the next 1 or 2, and then the remaining 3-5' of tomato plant is bare.

Today, I noticed the same bugs in the blossoms of my work garden, and that garden hasn't really set any fruit. I got started about a month later there. So I'm of a mind to blame most of my garden problems--to ascribe their destroyer as to be--, these pesky little bugs.

I've attached my best impromptu attempt to capture the bug (a dead one) on my camera phone. Maybe you can at least make out the size. They actually range in size and color from smaller, to middling (what's shown) to a bit larger; light brown/red to black. I've also posted a couple pics of the less deathly looking yellow leafs (post culling).

The Questions
- Are these bugs Thrips, as I suspect they must be.
- In any case, what is the best spray regimen to get rid of them? What else can I do, short of nuking the world with man/earth-harming chemicals?
- Can my plants recover from this, or are they doomed to set fruit no more? I mean, is my theory that these bugs are to blame for the fruit set problem sound? Note, weather has been great. I've changed nothing in my feeding (minimal) and water regimes.
- Anything I can do differently next year to guard against these so they don't take hold. I really hate how it seems like they are able to hide in the flowers, even from my poison sprays. They've got me beat it seems, but I can't join them because I'm a human after all and don't fit beneath the stigma pedals of a tomato flower.

Thanks for helping.
-naysen