Thanks for the link - and for your earlier recommendation about deleting the
".kde" folder (which did the trick). (My KDE is 4.3, by the way.)

Since then, I've had a couple of my "random" freezes under KDE. So that lets
Gnome off the hook as a possible cause. (Haven't tried REISUB yet - but chances
are I'll get a chance before the day is out.)

That's probably the end of my efforts in 9.10 for now. I've got a rock-solid
8.04 installation in another partition, and plan to wipe the 9.10 partition in
favor of 10.04 soon.