Artie, you have probably done this already, but have you looked in ~/Library/Containers/Keychains to see if another login keychain was created when you changed the password or were the contents deleted?
Is there a difference in the size of the populated and depopulated keychains?
Does the creation date on the login keychain change when the file is depopulated?
Obviously none of this solves your issue, but may help explain what is going on if not why.
Have you tried exporting the login keychain contents and then importing them back into the depopulated keychain as a workaround?
