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It's funny Miller, the 2005 Focus wagon did exactly the same thing, except it ran fine once you got it started whcih took about half an hour. My buddies 70 year old father had bought it wrecked and fixed it, sold it to a customer and then it came back a month later and it was just about impossible to start first time in the morning cold. Thjey refunded the money and no one could figure out how to get it starting properly.
Went to the Ford dealer and got all the service bulletins. The car had been to two Ford dealers, they did all the maintenance stuff (threw parts at it) and fixed nothing. Several hundred dollars later my buddies dad was ready to scrap the car for parts to build other wrecked cars they bought.
Based on the bulletins I cleaned every ground connection all over the car, then replaced the fuel pump 3 times. This exhausted all of Fords information on what might solve the problem. I had almost 13 hours time tied up in that dang car. I finally just sat down and thought about it for a while. It had a no return fuel system. The pressure sensor sent a signal to the ecu, which sent a signal to the fuel pump control module, which changed the voltage to the pump (in tank) itself to control the pressure to the injectors. I decided to try changing the sensor to see if I could get lucky. I had never worked on a Focus before but the thought of all that work being tossed for nothing just drove me crazy.
The sensor fixed it. I called the old mans daughter the next morning and told her it was fixed. She said "yeah right". I told here I would bet her $100 to $10 it was fixed. Since it only messed up on the first cold start in the morning it took them a few days to convince themselves it was actually fixed, but it was and they sold it for $5K.
The old man painted my 1994 Civic VX for me for saving that car from being scrapped.
I have helped them a few times, particularly replacing fuse boxes that are crushed in wrecks, mostly mid 2000s Ford Taurus, which they don't really buy anymore.
They are tough old Carolina share croppers kids and grand kids, without a lot of formal education, but that old man is still there every day banging out cars at 72 years old, and while they may not have a lot of formal education they are tough as nails and some of the best body a paint people I have ever known.
regards
mech
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