Taking a closer look at your original code, I see that xmin is actually larger than xmax. That's likely what was causing your issue.
"{"xmin":-11216835.021871055,"ymin":3398518.1829228727,"xmax":-10843258.104015714,"ymax":3553770.9280056115,"spatialReference":{"wkid":102100}}"
dojo.toJson(map.extent.toJson());
Is this what you're going for: http://jsfiddle.net/Vhn45/Also check out the help topic on working with extents.
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