These are new stock units. I don't know what firmware is on the receivers (I haven't found out how to check the Rx firmware version yet), but I just received the receivers this week (April, 2014) so they should be fairly recent production FrSky firmware.
This is coming from someone that has used both Futaba FASST and Spektrum DSMX receivers bind procedures in the past, So this is perhaps why I had trouble.
Of course, you should have the Taranis internal module in the correct mode (D16), and channel range (1-8), and Receiver number (1) for your application (note that the receiver number should be different for each model), the values I used are in ().
So first place the Taranis in bind mode via the menu on the Model Setup page.
Then, while holding down the 'FS' button on the receiver, turn on the power to the receiver (or connect an appropriate battey to it). At this point you will notice the Red and Green LEDs on with the RED LED flashing. Release the 'FS' button. Note that for the default 'telemetry on' mode, there is no need to connect any jumpers on the receiver. The RED LED flashing means that you had a successful BIND operation. If the red and green LEDs are on, but not flashing, then the bind did not occur. (do you have the transmitter in BIND mode?)
HERE IS THE CONFUSING PART: On Futaba and Spektrum receivers, when the receiver successfully achieves a bind with your transmitter, the receiver LED will stop flashing/blinking. This did not occur on the several X8R and X6R receivers I tried. So I kept thinking that the bind process was not working (it was working perfectly, but I just didn't realize it), because I kept retrying the procedure, looking for the blinking to stop!
Maybe this is obvious to others, but to me, I was stuck in a fatal loop of trying this over and over on each receiver, thinking that I either had a bad Taranis transmitter, or a batch of bad receivers. 
The next step is to shut off the power to the receiver (even though the LEDs are still flashing showing that you actually had a succefull bind).
Then turn off the 'Bind' mode on the Transmitter (press the 'exit' button).
Then power on the receiver again (without pressing the FS button), and the green LED should be on solid to indicate is has a link with your transmitter.
SUMMARY: With the current production firmware on the FrSky X8R and X6R receivers, don't wait for the LEDs to stop flashing when you are trying to bind them to your transmitter as the blinking actually means that the bind was successful!
I hope this will save someone else from wasting as much time as I wasted. It may even save a lot of support calls/emails.
If there ever is an update to the FrSky receiver firmware, I sure would like to see them change the binding LEDs to start blinking and then change to a solid (or at least a different blinking pattern) to indicate that they have bound successfully to your transmitter. Not to be the same as 'the other guys', but to give the user some sucessful feedback. If they don't want to do this, perhaps place a note on the web pages, and printed documentation to indicate that the user should not wait for the bind blinking pattern to stop, as this actually indicates a success!
But yes, I missed this in the manual, even though I read it about four times last night.
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