Wow, awesome link -- here's what happened:
I found the Profile Folder that page pointed me to, but that's where i stopped following their directions b/c i saw 2 files in the folder, one named prefs.js (and had been modified at 6:40pm), and the other named prefs-1.js, which had been modified at 3pm, around the time Thunderbird had crashed on me. The prefs.js one was like 1KB in size, while the prefs-1.js file was 20kb in size, so I surmised that Thunderbird had somehow created the prefs-1.js file as a backup when i had killed the thunderbird.exe process, and that it still contained my Profile (b/c my address book was still intact, as that link explained). So all I did was rename prefs-1.js to prefs.js and started thunderbird, and voila! all is well.
epiphanot - if u want to PM me your s/n on Stars or FTP, I'll send you $5 for helping me fix this. Saved me so much time, thanks!
