Well the work you have done on WP is legendary. And the backup I have in reserve is a clean one. You are right... It would take me only 5min to try again and hard reset if it buggers. It may have been a coincidence that it pooped while launching WP-Pilot and may have been a conflict of interest on my PPC elsewhere.
I will re-attempt and let you know how I fare. Thanks for your reply storyr.
Update (13 min later)...
I apologize if I blamed WP-Pilot for the disturbance on my device; as it turned out WP-Pilot loaded and works just fine and compliments WP greatly. Thanks for the support!