| have you considered keeping one of the oldest accounts and not using it? having a line of credit isnt necessarily a bad thing, especially one that is established.
im not an expert in this area and there are others here who will correct my mistakes. if anything, my posting will bump your post up again so other will catch it...
i know your debt to credit limit ratio is important... that is, lets say you have three cards card #1: 500 debt/ 1000 limit, #2: 750 debt/ 1000 limit, #3: 650 debt/ 1500 and then you transfer them to a no balance card to get 1900 debt/ 2200 limit and cancel the other cards. you may not necesarily be in a much better place concerning your credit right away because your debt to credit ratio in the first case was 54% where in the second case its 86% and you have just started a new account.
dont know if its an option for you, and its one that probably isnt the best idea concerning investments, but we used a 401k loan to consolodate debt. it didnt hurt our credit score, since its a loan to ourselves. the bad side is it took money out of long term investments, which is simply bad since compounding is the key long term... but for us it was more of a mental need and im glad we did it... so if that is an option for you maybe itll work.
as for whether the bank loan will hurt your credit... its just moving debt around... im not sure how much itll hurt... the biggest issue id have is make sure you can pay and be one schedule no matter what... if you use your home as collateral and you default, you can be in some serious pain.
on the other side, itd be a lot better than going through a debt consolidation program.
now ill step aside so the experts can speak the truth. =) | 
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