I rebooted a couple of times and shortly after going to the Catorise menu the problem would reappear each time. I then uninstalled Catorise and went without it for 2 days and was fine. Reinstalling Catorise from Extras thereafter reintroduced the problem again so I just finally decided to go without it and I've been fine ever since.

I also don't think the problem is Catorise (could be hildon-desktop like you mention later for all I know) but it would be easier to revert that single program. At least that's my lazy work around to test if Catorise was the catalyst for the problem like I believe. I'll also try to get you my copy of those files you requested of handaxe so you have at least 2 samples to work with. Thank you kindly for your time.