I went back to 10.6.3. The hell with it. I'm tired of troubleshooting. I've done enough for one lifetime.
I realize that you're frustrated, but don't let it get to you; you just ran into an unlucky glitch in your update procedure.
And if you need motivation, remember that you've got to update to 10.6.8 to avail yourself of Safari 5's extensions functionality...well worth another shot (or two
) at the Combo, not to mention the fact that many apps that will run in 10.6.8 will
not run in earlier versions of 10.6.