I don't know what's going on, but when I try to reply to this topic:
http://www.istechforum.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1173207095 It hoses my browser -- every single time.
Anyway, as a follow up response to my original and subsequent postings, my problem seems to have been fixed by applying the ISTECH patch AREPOA from here
http://www.istechsupport.com/status.asp posted on 3/6/07. I don't honestly remember how I even came along this "patch" link (I think it may have been in a support update e-mail from Lynn at some point after my initial posting in this topic; not a specific e-mail to my question, to be clear), but I tried the patch and it seemed to take care of things. I do apologize for not replying at the time with my findings. Caulk it up to being a tad put off by not getting a response letting me/us know about the patch and stumbling across the solution accidently, and then getting lost on to other issues.
I wasn't aware of this patch link being regularly updated, but now I have it saved and check it from time to time. I hope my findings help some others.