Seems what did the trick in getting QS' services to register was to delete all Quicksilver.app bundles which also have an Info.plist inside them that specifies the same service. I guess the rule here is that if Spotlight can't find the Quicksilver.app bundle it's not visible to the Services registry.
Once I had deleted all instances of Quicksilver.app (and their Info.plists) inside and then restarted my SL system I was able to find two new services in System Preferences which when ticked where available globally. The good news is that it will also work when QS does not have a dock icon. Once I did all that I can now get any selection (text or otherwise) into QS again by hitting Cmd+Esc. HTH André
