All - Interesting update for the forum. I have been running the latest US firmware from day one. Before attempting to flash the phone again, I loaded the Vanilla image as described here:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=32993&page=4

Note that I did not flash the device; I only ran the vanilla image. I then loaded on a number of widgets and have had no problems since:
SMS notification
OM Weather
Location window
AP News
RSS
Google search button
Media player
FM transmitter
Tune Wiki
Facebook

The only difference between what I have done before and now is that I have not configured any mail accounts, particularly mail for exchange. I will report back to see if adding exchange impacts the phone. As reported earlier, I have a really large exchange mail file. I am going to try installing mfefolders to limit the synching to just my inbox which hopefully will help make synching more manageable.

Fingers crossed as the n900 is a pleasure to use when it is functions as it should.