Just a quick update:
Been talking to 'David' in support (he read these boards? Should I put his name in quotes?) and regarding the remote issue, he said that the battery contacts in the remote can sometimes be mis-adjusted, causing it to not make contact. He offered to replace it for me. Cool.
Regarding the wierd-acting buttons - I never thought of it before, but he asked me to uninstall HiJack, and test it. For the most part, everything worked fine. There was still a small issue where the player wouldn't 'see' me holding down the button until I let go, and then it would jump FF or REW a hair, and resume playing. (So, translated, that means that whatever HiJack does, it 'amplified' the issue with the buttons, to where it was a REAL problem, from something that was a strange occurance.)
Anyways, I shipped it off, and now I'm RIO-less. *sigh*