Further update:
MSI has been surprisingly good. I must be incredibly jaded because I saw a lengthy form I had to fill out to get any support (what's your bios revision, what's your ram brand, double sided, etc, etc). I thought I'd get blown off as is often the case. Instead I got a response and an actual email conversation. They said they'd contact Nvidia about the problem. I'll take that as a quite reasonable version of "we're working on it, hang in there" answer which I was not expecting.
In the interim, I'm reasonably satisfied through running some heavy 3d apps that the BSOD issue is limited only to the sleep issue and that I can live with it for now. I don't think there are other demons living somewhere in the drivers out to get me. And otherwise, 7 is a decent OS. Networking is mostly automatice and the interface is a good one.
So "Karma" awarded for this event:
-5: to Microsoft for blowing the academic promotion.
+3: to Microsoft for having decent, quick, helpful support that solved at least one problem.
-10: to Digital River for making Microsoft look bad.
+1: to Digital River for at least answering my emails.
-5: to Digital River for refusing a refund as they'd apparently given to a number of users, giving me boiler plate responses instead.
-2: to Digital River for referring me to Microsoft for product key issues. It turned out not to be their problem but it could very well have been an invalid ID and I would've been out $30 in that case.
-2: to Nvidia for referring me directly to the card manufaturer for support even though they wrote the software.
-5: to Nvidia for not catching the problem over several iterations before RTM.
+1: to Nvidia for not being AMD/Radeon and their driver support ( 
)
+2: to MSI for actually responding, if not solving the problem and acting like a team of engineers willing to solve the problem instead of blowing me off.
-5: to Me for getting panicky and upset too quickly and not being emotionally ready for unexpected install problems.
-5: to Me for expecting a smooth install as I'd had for XP and Vista.
-2: to Me for breaking my rule of waiting 6-12 months before installing a new OS, EVEN IF they all say it's more stable and faster than Vista.
+5: to Me for being willing to endure multiple installs to work the problem.
+1: to Me for not going completely off the deep end after having 3-4 unrelated problems rear their heads at the same time.
+1: to Me for getting over the BSOD factor and decide finally to be patient and let the drivers issues work their way through the system.
+5: to you guys being willing to commiserate.
Totals:
Microsoft: -2
Digital River: -16
Nvidia: -6
MSI: +2
Me: -5
The Impulse/Wincustomize Community: +5
