Possible Solution to 950 Penalty

Maybe I shouldn't have multiple domains?

[loner]

I've been kicking around reasons that my main site may have been hit with a 950 penalty. Over the last 11 years the site has been developed on 3 primary domains. I've been saving a fourth for whatever reason and maybe it's time to combine the content and make the mess into one really, really large site instead of three kinda large ones.

But how?- The code from one site to another is fairly portable and with minor modifications could make a transition reasonably easy. But, what should I do with robots.txt files on which? Should I use the fourth domain name or one that hasn't been hit with the penalty (yet). Or move the others to the penalized site? What should get forwarded to where and when?

Any theories on if this consolidation would even help with Google? And getting out from under the blackout?

I was thinking about ditching and going back to whatever-in-the-heck-it-was I was doing for a living before, but this is too much fun. :)