Hi Jeff,

>I've run into a new and unexpected problem while attempting to boot.
>After selecting "Boot Now", the booter proceeds quite normally until right
>when the mac side would vanish and be replaced by bsd.  At this point, the
>screen freezes.

This sounds very familiar to me: I had such behavior all the time when I
forgot to set the graphics mode to 256 colors or less. When set to thousands
of colors, it would completely freeze my machine.
With the latest kernels, however, this has changed. Michael Zucca put some
new graphics stuff in that gives a very elegant black screen with white text
instead of the usual black on white.

Hope this, or David's or Allen's suggestions, help.

Best wishes,

          Nico

--
  Dr. N.J.R. van Eikema Hommes     Computer-Chemie-Centrum
  hommes@ccc.uni-erlangen.de       Universitaet Erlangen-Nuernberg
  Phone:    +49-(0)9131-856532     Naegelsbachstr. 25
  FAX:      +49-(0)9131-856566     D-91052 Erlangen, Germany