Okay, as of this morning, here's what I'm running with:

  Kernel: color generic 961024 (from MIT site, /pub/ivanenko)
X Server: 960512 color (from Puma; recent post declared it to be the latest?)

These are the latest versions as far as I can tell.  I've also installed
grfioctl.h, just to let you know.

This new kernel works (no longer freezes when identifying my video card
during boot), boots properly, no problems.  The server, on the other
hand...

        * I type "startx"
        * Unix CRs a couple of times underneath the prompt at which I typed it
        * Hard drive starts to spin furiously
        * Hard drive stops spinning
        * Screen turns completely black
        * Machine seems to be frozen

I've tried booting while already in both 1bit and 8bit; no dice.  You've
all been very helpful so far; any ideas what's causing *this*?!  :)  Is
this in fact *NOT* the latest X server?

A theory of mine is that this video card, despite being an actual Apple
product, doesn't support hardware QuickDraw (I seem to hazily remember some
MacOS app yelling at me about this constantly a few years ago; a game, or
something).  All the readme's that I've read lead me to believe that
hardware QuickDraw is a requirement for running X in color.  However, this
new kernel evidently has no objections to it; it recognizes the card in the
boot messages without any errors or warnings or anything.  I'm confused;
confused, I tells ya...

   ____  _             __     __   "Great spirits have always encountered
  / __ \(_)__  ___ ___/ /__ _/ /__   violent opposition from mediocre
 / /_/ / / _ \(_-</ _  / _ `/ / -_)   minds."
/_____/_/_//_/___/\_/_/\_/_/_/\__/               -- A. Einstein