Update:

Hadn't searched the registry for explorer or anything close. Finally did that and found some entries that had strange characters. I deleted the characters and voila! PIE works. Now I don't recommend this and certainly don't take responsibility for it, but quite often
you can tell when things "aren't quite right" so.....
So now, PIE works, opera is released and there is always netfront 3.3 beta. Netfront still doesn't work for some private webmail services, opera shows
sooooo much promise but like wm5 is not quite ready for prime time. PIE works, but is so lacking. you really aren't looking forward to the second date. so i'm rotating for the time being.
All this to say, for some -- even if you aren't a hacker by nature -- take a look under the hood. it can be most instructive and you might just get back up and running. Cheers and good luck.