after a reboot (and disconnect/reconnect of network cables), it all seemed to work fine. I had initially implemented sarabanjina's fix (
http://efwsupport.com/index.php?topic=1013.0) to get the GUI up after loading in the 2.2 backup. I suspect a /etc/init.d/httpd reload would have cleaned this up,
I definitely will be shaking this around a lot before installing it in the home office's production network, because of the rocky upgrade path. Ignoring that reservation, however, so far I like what I see with 2.3.
--bill