How about that.

For the 15th time, just from frustration, I uninstalled the printer drivers and reinstalled them from the Dell website. 

Had to turn off some things that hadn't been turned off by the HP/Compaq talking me through it, but eeh.   And y'know what?

I just printed some stuff I need from the Compaq laptop using the Dell printer, exactly as it should work.

DH suggested that there may have been an update inbetweentimes that corrected whatever was thrown off when it quit working.

I don't know.

I DID set a restore point to right after I printed those pages!