Local settings were fine. It was defaults that were an issue - new accounts created were just as screwed. It was not the user gconf directory - it was whatever happens when gconftool-2 runs in an rpm post script that was completely fubared.
Ouch. I've not experienced that yet - sorry.
No - I'm not volunteering. I don't have the time. It is a weakness in gnome (and thus fedora) however.
I'm not a huge fan of the gconf registry either, but that's (perhaps unfortunately) the direction the devs have gone. I wonder if "gconftool-2 --dump / > backup.xml" every so often would actually serve as a backup? Chris