Wow. Usually on Monday's things go much worse.

Just for kicks, I thought I would try to run system restore from the Vista CD again (for the 5th time). There has been only one restore point each time, same as this one. I went ahead and selected it and let it do its thing. Rebooted, expecting the flashing !! error screen (for the 5th time), but this time - I GET A VISTA DESKTOP!

I am greatly surprised, but don't want to get real excited yet, it could revert at next boot up....