% Are you aware that you MAY NOT START the X server as non-root? Use Xwrapper
% instead. This is explained in the INSTALL.X11 document. Your problem might be
% related.

Yes I'm aware of that... after all, I'd been running NetBSD/Amiga since 0.8
days, and other Unixes a lot longer. ;-)  The problem occurs even when I try to
launch X as root. 

% 
% Otherwise: Hm... try to use explicit -dev /dev/grf3, please.
% 

I'll give that a try, but I don't think that's the problem, because it does
appear to be using the correct grf device since, as I said earlier, it actually
switches to the 1024x768 mode.

% As long as you installed all of 1.4 X11, and 1.4 base system, and 1.4 kernel,
% with no 1.3 remnants, I think this is not necessary.

Yes, it's 1.4 kernel and and 1.4 X11 and base, however is DID do an upgrade,
not a new install, so if something didn't get overwritten during the 1.4
installation, than it's still a 1.3.2 binary. However, considering I installed
all of the binary/sets tarballs, I don't think that anything related to X could
be lingering around from before. Especially considering that the problem occurs
even when I simply try to run the X server without anything else.

regards,
  Bo