btw--after the java update I started up in "Safe Boot" mode (hold down the shift key after a system restart) and ran disk permissions from the Disk Utility, which fixed an unusual number of permissions.

When you said 10.1.6 Chrills, did you mean 10.2.6?

It's very difficult to remove all the Java 1.4 components. Java installs a number of versions for backwards compatibility.