I'm not going insane :)
Finally got my DoC identified and programmed (took me hours to recall the whole procedure to get the DoC running - things you don't use regularly slip so quickly!) ... anyway, using the same code I cried over 6months ago; http://www.acl.lanl.gov/linuxbios/faq/archive/1266.html ... I got the 0x69 out to my POST board, so I'm feeling much better (hmmm no more VIA :-)) With a bit of luck, the ALi will take a normal process to jump into 32bit mode and I'll be off! yee-har!
