Okay then ... I've moved up to Ultimate Edition 2.0 32-bit and I think I'll stick with that for the moment. 'Nuff experimenting for now and I want to give Intrepid and Ultimate Edition 2.0 time to settle in for the long haul.
Rather than download the ISO, I used Update Manager by first editing my sources.list for the basic Ubuntu upgrade to Intrepid, leaving Ultimate Editions repo reference set to Harty. Once everything was up and running on yet-to-be-released sorta final version of Ubuntu Intrepid ... with the exception of a minor lock-up when booting (which continues 'til I have the time to address that issue) ... I then modified the list once more for the change from the Ultimate Edition 1.9 repository (Harty) to to get the Ultimate Edition 2.0 repository (Intrepid).
It ... the download/install process ... was lengthy (several hours) but I don't think more time than downloading the ISO, burning and installing. And it worked out well and I am now using 2.0 ... with all my settings and data in place. I think I'll leave the move to 64-bit for another time ... if at all. Ultimate Edition 32-bit Intrepid works just fine and until I see more discussion about significant system improvements by using 64-bit for general everyday use, I'll leave things be ... if I can resist the temptation.
By the way, I used the excellent Remastersys to backup the previous set-up to an ISO on a DVD as a measure of safety ... an unusual precaution for me since I would normally just leap over the edge go for it.
So far all is well ... and I expect it will only improve from here ...