Now that's gonna be useful!!! I think I can use that to do what I need to do, has all kinds of options for working with the components and groups. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help - although I would still like to know why the component browser gives me such weird results. I'm firmly convinced that my basic modeling practices are far from ideal, and I'm paying for it with things like that. While I can do what I set out to do, pretty much, eventually, I think my sloppy techniques are resulting in some unnecessary bumps in the road and larger files and edge counts than need be. If I don't get it right now, it's only gonna get worse as I delve into more complicated models.
Anyhow, thanks again.