Try Catch - That did the trick!

"rm -rf .qmf" immediately after starting terminal (no root access)

It took a while and looked like it was doing nothing but eventually I got back to the "~ $" prompt (sorry, that's N9WB speak for command line prompt).

Then reboot and then... SUCCESS!

On the very first attempt to DL the white arrow wasn't there, but it's there now.

Gmail is running quickly. My library acct. looks to be a big speed-hit culprit (edit: so I didn't re-link it to my phone). I haven't tested my other work acct. (edit: I did relink it to my phone and it works fine - an EXCHANGE server but not set up properly on the server-side and we are actively discouraged from accessing the account through any email client but rather through the web interface).

I had to run the command again ("rm -rf .qmf") b/c one of my gmail accounts ceased to update again. This time the command running was almost instantaneous and after running the command in the terminal AND rebooting, email works once again. What's even odder is that that somehow also fixed my phone from not switching to the low power stand-by screen).

In any case, thank you. Next time you're in NY drink's on me.