Thanks for the responses, guys. After more trial and error, I'm happy to report that I successfully copied the saves to PS3 and they work for GOTY edition. As I mentioned, I tried saving the saves with the original BLUS30790 region; however, I really just changed the folder names from "31026" to "30790" and attempted to use and that was unsuccessful. I went through all the steps I mentioned before, using "30790" region code instead and unchecking the "Copy Protected" option, and success! It's odd that the code on the spine of the game is BLUS31026 but apparently the game saves under BLUS30790. I couldn't confirm this because the original saves on my PS3 are copy protected, so hence the trial and error process.
Thanks again for the help!