Well, after two weeks of futzing on and off I got PPP to work.  The 
solution was so revoltingly easy I'll spare myself the embarrasment of 
relating it.  

Ok, fine,  I gave up on everything and restored all the files in 
the PPP distribution to the original .pg files (I didn't have backups of 
the others, and I had edited the crap out of them).  The .pg set 
connected with no more effort than changing my password, userid, and 
number.  How depressing.  

For my next trick, I read in one of the FAQs that the 1.2 kernel would 
have dial on demand PPP.  I have installed 1.2_BETA Generic #67; how does 
one convince ppp to dial automatically, and what triggers an auto_dial?

thanks to all for all the help, input, and support.

R