Jon,

Yeah, after writing all that I went back to play with it for myself, and
found out the ..'d syntax version didn't fly.
So...
<in my best Gilda Radner as Emily Litella voice
"Oh! a typo. Nevermind."
</in my best Gilda Radner as Emily Litella voice

Actually, I've been told that sometimes it's better to let VBA clean up. I
understand the rationale for cleaning up after yourself, and in many cases I
do so anyway (e.g., with the object variables which relate to automation).

?? who ever said that?

In my experience, the vast majority of VSTO users are .Net programmers who
are now branching into Office, not Office VBA users who are branching into
..Net. The only reason I'm a VBA programmer is that VBA is what has been
provided as a programming interface for Excel. Before VBA I was an XLM
programmer. If they force VSTO down our throats and remove VBA, then I and
many of my colleagues will finally have to move to VSTO.

I don't dispute any of that one bit.
....thanks for the help, Jon.