Just as a point of interest, my 'problem' from the OP has, all by itself, rectified back to normal extra page positions. Maybe there was a security update in the last 2 weeks and the corrected code was contained within
As to why I'm still on 10.6.8, it's simply because it works, well enough for my needs and as I haven't availed myself of mobile gadgets there seems little need to change at this point. Thanks for all the suggestions btw.
SHJ