After many a day of poking at the broken machine, I tried SnowOSX 3.6 and it came right up.

- sound: using VoodooHD instead, minimal caveat as it doesn't show in System Profiler (no built-in audio) but who cares

- dvd: not showing up but I expect it is an incompatible JmicronATA kext.

- no orange drive icons

- managed to mount my old 10.5.5 drive and grab the gfxstring.

Many many thanks for the board specific info in any case, it's really appreciated! As I read and learn more i'll be less of a noob.