...to yesterday's post, much of my work did not survive a reboot.
(sad trombone)
Actually, to be honest, almost none of the cool stuff did. I learned that I couldn't PERSONALLY reboot it unless I put it through ADB.
"Not a big deal," I thought. So, I let it be.
Overnight, Dave (I named it Dave, don't ask) took a nap, and when I woke it back up, Dave went through the boot sequence.
Now, I've lost the controls on the bottom. The packages are still gone (take THAT SONY!!!! lol) but it boots into the regular screen again and my pull down menu is back.
Next is to see if I can force it to use Poweramp as the default launcher, replacing the Sony-branded one.
On the plus side, it's still loads better than it was when I got it. Snappier even with the stupid Android layout.