It would appear that the new build of egcs was enough to solve my
immediate problems, thanks for pointing that out, Todd (though I
probably should have been able to piece that one together a while ago
on Bill's "need a new compiler" advice, whatever).

I did a forceful make includes in src/include and src/lib and a make ;
make install in src/lib/libkvm, after which top worked.

Similarly, after remaking and reinstalling ps, it no longer bitches
about my proc fs (or lack thereof, really) and happily prints process
information to boot.

I've still got a lot of work to do to pull the system up to -current
(including figuring why my make build died off citing insufficient
virtual memory - I think it's because I have more physical RAM than I
thought I would when I laid out the machine, which *might* mean that
my swap's getting overpaged), but I now have a working ps and top, so
I can keep track of what's going on on the system, which is all I've
really wanted for a while now.

Perhaps Chuck decided to give me a Christmas gift by letting my system
behave again. If so, he's about six and three quarter hours late by my
time zone, but whatever. :^>

       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net