Building a D Phrygian #6 Scale

Yesterday I played around with a couple of power chord riffs in standard drop D that have root notes at frets 0, 1, 3, 5 and 7 (D, Eb, F, G and A).  I got to thinking, what is that scale?  So I went to JGuitar.com, which totally rocks, and set up my tuning to Drop D, then set the root note of the Scale Calculator to D and started calculating different scales until I found one that fit:  D Phrygian #6!

Of course, how could I have forgotten?  Good old Phrygian Sharp Six.  I wanted to understand where that name comes from, so I searched for it and found this at Marc Sabatella's site.  Mr. Sabatella writes:

There is no common term for the second mode of the melodic minor scale. 

It doesn't tell me where the name comes from, but it is what I need to derive this thing from first principles without twisting in the wind for hours:

1.  C Major scale with # of semitones between each degree:

       C   D   E   F   G   A   B   C
         2   2   1   2   2   2   1

2.  The 6th mode (Aeolian mode) of the major scale is the natural minor:

       A   B   C   D   E   F   G   A
         2   1   2   2   1   2   2

3.  To make the harmonic minor out of the natural minor, raise the 7th scale degree one semitone.  The classical composers did this to be difficult make the 7th degree of the scale a proper lead tone, half a step away from the root.  So much for the mathematical precision of the "music of the spheres".  They were like, "Yeah that's a pretty good mode but you know what?  Doesn't sound right for my song here. Let's just change it."

       A   B   C   D   E   F   G#  A
         2   1   2   2   1   3   1

4.  OMG!  See that 3 semitone interval in there?  Ugh!  It sounds "unnatural"!  To remedy that, they make the harmonic minor into the melodic minor by means of another little tweak:  raising the 6th a semitone to "take up" the allegedly awkward-sounding 3 semitone leap between the 6th and 7th degrees.

        A   B   C   D   E   F#  G#  A
          2   1   2   2   2   2   1


Another thing:  that's the birth of a scale that contains two 1 semitone intervals that are only a single 2 semitone interval apart.  Scales built from natural or harmonic minor scales don't have that pattern.  Scales built from modes of the melodic minor scale do have that pattern.  Useful side effect of all that goofing off with the minor scale.  So next time you have a partial scale that goes "half-whole-half" and you start searching for a name, and you find yourself in a sea of Altered Locrians and Phrygian #6 goofiness, it might help to remember that you're simply perhaps in some mode of the melodic minor.
And finally:  in the classical approach, you only play that when you ascend.  You play the natural minor when you descend.  Dicks.
Oh wait one more thing:  When you read about minor scales to find chord progressions that go with them, you are given a whole pile of options.  Where do they come from?  It's all the chords that are diatonic to both the natural and melodic (and sometimes the harmonic) minors, chucked into a bucket.

5.  The 2nd mode of this one-way scale is sometimes called the Phrygian #6 for some reason - that's for another time:

       B   C   D   E   F#  G#  A   B
         1   2   2   2   2   1   2 

6.  Transposed to my chosen root of D, because that's the lowest, coolest note of a guitar in drop D:

       D   Eb  F   G   A   B   C   D
         1   2   2   2   2   1   2 


Note: It was helpful to bring in the flats instead of the sharps, to keep the accidental count as low as possible.  Since the riffs I'm playing only contain the first 5 notes, the question of whether I want to have A go to B or A go to Bb is up to me, and I haven't decided on that yet.  That will be a totally different scale!