Thanks for all the help everybody. I finally have something working. Microchump should be ashamed to have a tool that requires a week or two to massage painstakingly to get running... and this was on one of their own development boards.
For anybody reading this thread in the future, be sure to check out TI's stuff! ...and maybe Intel... maybe Atmel - oh wait, Microchip just bought them, forget Atmel. I wonder what Motorola is doing these days, they used to have some pretty cool processors.
I'm sure I'll have more questions: I can download code to their development board, but it doesn't execute to flash an LED. I've been there before. But that's another topic.