Oakely Doakely!
Went back and flashed back to RC29 and then acquired root access again. Instead of going to JF1.42 as an intermediate step, went directly to JF1.5 and then applied the radio update. Long story short, I am all updated!
Two notes: 1) Glad my phone isn't bricked 2) Even more glad I don't have to wait for the update (or future ones) until I'm "lucky" enough to receive the OTA
Okay one last thing. The JF build is worth it for me because I don't use IM, am not worried about the MyFavs icon and I'm really liking the multitouch zoom/unzoom. Build looks awesome, looking forward to putting it through the paces today.