So far, the method I described above seems to work fine. I have, however, encountered another problem I can't seem to solve, and doesn't appear to be the result of anything I did.
The forum I've developed so far can be seen here:
The skin is a derivative of the PHPBB2 skin, which I like a lot, and is very appropriate for a professional corporate-type web site. I'm still slowly modifying the images so as not to plageurize PHPBB, but I wanted to give them credit for their work that helped me to get the layout the way I like it. I'll be including their name with a link in my disclaimer as I get the forum more developed.
Whether I use this skin or the original, I have no "New Post" or general "Reply" buttons. As you can see, following the link above, that there are no buttons or links to start new threads or begin a post.
I found the "Group Permissions" page in the Admin section, but it's not so intuitive. The grid the page says to use to edit the permissions are not links, or active in any way. It's just text. It appears like the label row of a table, with no data beneath the labels. Updating the permissions using the button below the grid does nothing, since nothing has been changed.
So I'm stuck. I can't set up the forum threads, and don't see any options to let me do that. And, also, the larger issue at hand is that I can't edit the member group permissions, which is not good.
PLEASE HELP me figure this out. I'm so close to getting this thing up & running! Thank you in advance!

~ Mystic
Edited by Mystic - 28 September 2006 at 11:48pm