Andy,
Instead of using images and image swaps for the main menu items, why don't you simply have the color of the text change, that is, why not simply edit the colors into the CSS file instead of doing image swaps?
I'm not sure what you are AP positioning that is "getting you in trouble," but you should be able to manage all your text color changes within your CSS stylesheet file. I suggest you set up a sample page with the same elements in it (from scratch, so to speak), eliminating the awkward mouse-over behaviors, and go from there. Because the spry menubar works, right out of the box, you might test your changes on a newly defined site (new version of the spry stylesheet, too). I do not see why it should be providing you any trouble at all, but something has thrown a monkey-wrench into the system.
Beth
