If the machine is on battery and left running unattended, the screen 
  blanks.  Usually, I can't get it to turn back on again, except by 
  suspend/resume -- and sometimes (like just now) the suspend doesn't 
  work.

I have a 600E (2645-4AU), and it used to work fine.  I dropped it and
broke the screen and swapped LCD panels with a 600 (2645-41U).  Now,
when the 600E blanks the screen and I hit a key, I get alternating
vertical black/white stripes of perhaps 4 pixels.  Switching from X11
to ttyE0 and back via ctrl-alt-f1, ctrl-alt-f5 restores the display.

On a T30 (2366-97U), I have no issues with suspend/resume or the LCD.
I use apm, not acpi, and am running 2.99.15, but it was ok with
earlier code as well.
-- 
        Greg Troxel <gdt@ir.bbn.com>