Some good suggestions there for keeping the cost down but, y'know, I'm past the point of "This is fun and I'm happy to spend many more hours to save a hundred bucks or so".  Throwing the towel in and buying the Alltek from Mark. : )

That will at least get me a board that boots and will hopefully solve to original problem too. 

Thanks for your help so far.

I'll let y'all know how it goes once the new MPU is in.
Matt.