I never changed any of my settings. Gmail simply stopped working. The trick I posted above fixed and got it to start working again.
I have no idea what a captcha is, but unlocking it restored pop functionality for gmail on my x51v.
*edit* Did a little research to figure out what a captcha is. It is actually sort of cool, if you're a nerd like me. Check it out here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha
*edit*