Thanks! I read it all and sort of get it. I especially liked the explanation of using the ESR of the caps - it never made any sense to me before.
So much to learn, so much to do, too little pay too little free time, sigh.
P.S. - do you have a link to any of those nifty basic graphic physics models about how the LDO can pass so much current with so little Vdrop? I searched yesterday but didn't find anything at my lowly knowledge level. For some reason, I work with things better if understand the basic mechanisms.