I was dead tired last night, so I decided to forgo the PRAM battery change. But today on my break at work, I found some Wallstreet discussions over at Apple's forum that seem to shed some light on what I may be experiencing. But I must say the information is overwhelming. And I had thought the Wallstreet to be a very non-complex machine to own. Perhaps it is in the stock condition, but with a hard drive bigger than 8GB and a new CPU too -- watch out. I'm a bit overwhelmed after having read all this info, but I'll post the relevant threads here for those of you with inquiring minds...

8GB Limit:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1471833?start=0&tstart=0

More on the 8GB Limit, in the context of the early iMacs:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/5224484?messageID=5224484#5224484?messageID=5224484

Apple article on problematic booting into Open Firmware:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA22193?viewlocale=en_US

Wallstreet & OS X 10.4 Tiger:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1390427?start=0&tstart=0

Apple's Wallstreet "Battery Reset 2.0" software:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1269?viewlocale=en_US

Wallstreet Battery Charging Issues:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1447206?threadID=1447206

And yes, I read through all those threads, in their entirety.

Ack! My brain hurts!