Had many issues with phone, decided to erase all data and now it won't finish

Question

Okay here's the rundown of my problem on my iPhone 5 32GB. I can't check currently (you'll understand why later) but I believe it was on iOS 7.1.1 as I know it wasn't the absolute most recent version. First off, my lock button is sometimes unresponsive, a hardware issue and I haven't gotten around to getting that fixed yet. Anyways.
Today I wanted to open up my twitter app. The instant it opens, everything freezes. I mean everything: screen, lock button, home button, everything. The screen usually shuts off after 90s if I don't do anything, so the screen went black after this time as everything I did didn't register. Now with the screen being black, still no response from most things. The only thing I can do is activate Siri, though the screen still doesn't turn on, just the sound. She couldn't usually hear me, and if she did it would take her about a minute or so to respond. I can still connect to iTunes (windows 8) though so I did that, but I stopped the initial sync. I tried doing the hold both buttons for 10s thing but that didn't work (might be because the lock button is iffy) so I couldn't start recovery mode.
At this point, I decide the only thing I could do (because no where on Google anyone had a similar problem) is to restore the phone, either to factory or to a backup. When I tried these options in iTunes, it told me that it could not do this while Find my iPhone is active, and to go to settings on my phone to turn it off. I can't open settings with the screen black. I tried going to icloud.com in order to see if I could turn it off from there. The site could find my phone just fine, could make the sound just fine. I could however not remove the device from iCloud unless the phone was turned off (which I again can't do with a black screen).
At this point, I went to the directory with the backup on my computer and copied it to another location. Then in iTunes I did a sync to create a new backup. Now the only thing that was available for me to do was on the web site to erase all data from the phone as it did not require Find my iPhone to be turned off. Feeling out of options, I went through with it and clicked erase. For some reason, this is the time that the screen decides to turn on. The phone showed the apple logo and a progress bar. The bar progressed quickly at first but then slowed as it neared the end. At this current point, it's been at what appears to be 100% for around an hour with nothing happening. The buttons do nothing, my computer can't see the device so iTunes won't do anything.
Is there anything else I could try to do or should I just wait it out. My city does have an apple store which I could go to tomorrow but if I could get my phone running tonight that would be great. Also, if I can't do anything and it doesn't budge, if I take it to the store would it cost a lot to fix or (if necessary) replace? It was a birthday gift two years ago, bought without a plan, and I don't think it's still under warranty.

Answer 1

Hi..thanks for your advice!
Ok, I am student so buying a new phone is not possible ;( This experience has turned me off Apple anyway! All I did was click yes to their iTunes upgrade prompt asking me if I want to update....and now I don't have a phone and can't access all my backup etc on my iTunes because it seems the only way to get to it is with another iPhone!?
I can't believe that through the Apple recycling program I could possibly get $50 for this phone because the hardware is perfect but there is no support for this issue...feels like Apple is just trying to force everyone with hacked phone to buy new ones!