I did indeed restart after installing Python. The exact order I took was:
1) Uninstall GIMP
2) Download all the Python and GTK+ and Py-stuff
3) Install Python 2.5.4
4) Restart
5) Install GTK+
6) Install other Py-stuff
7) Make sure that shiny new scripts are all all in the script folder of GIMP
Reinstall (latest version of) GIMP [note: I had been running GIMP 2.4, upgraded to 2.6.5; I don't think I like that you can't minimize the tools and layers/palette windows anymore... sometimes I want to access my desktop, you know? I think I
do like that it automatically opens a window for an image frame with all the menus centralized]
Ahh. Somewhere along the way I had gotten the impression that Python scripts belonged in the script folder along with script-fu scripts. I'll change them around tonight and check and see if that solves the problem, thanks!
Note: It changes my 8parenthesis into a bespectacled smiley; I'm just trying to enumerate, not to be cool