Kirk, thanks, I downloaded the beta earlier and am about to begin using it. Re the crash reporter thing- you know (well actually you probably don't!) what it's like when you are rushing and not paying attention to each key stroke or mouse click - I can not now say with certainty what option I chose. I'm pretty sure I've used the reopen option before now on various apps and not noticed the prefs being junked, but again not 100% sure, I might avoid it from now on however.. just to be sure.
cheers, Simon