After several days of playing around, I found a workaround, and for those who are interested in this topic. this will save you some time researching.
High Point at
www.high-point.com offers an access abstraction library to the Widcomm stack. Its at half the price of Widcomm, and its well documented and easily downloaded for evaluation before plungging down your hard earned $$$$.
I have been having fun with the eval version, hope you'll find the same and keep this posting alive so that we can share tricks and tips.