First, thanks to Troy and all the others for your suggestions. I too am interested in seeing how this all turns out.
I may just say "nuts" and do a destructive restore. I have been meaning to get an external HD for back-up anyway, and this is a pretty good excuse.... but the engineer/scientist in me wants to KNOW what happened and why and it also wants to FIX it.
So right now, it's just a matter of finding the extended period of time necessary to actually do it!
Again, will keep y'all posted!
Thanks!