How sad, replying to my own posts! Really, I'm not lonely or anything like that, truly...
. Anyway, I never did solve the Disk Utility problem, but soon after my hard drive died, I replaced it and reinstalled Leopard, and now it's all good: Disk Utility has returned. Hurray! By the way, all manner of buggy things have been solved with the departure of my hard drive, I guess I really needed, after almost 3 years, to clean the drive. I'll do that this time, well before I begin to experience the problems that so frustrated me last time.
Anyway, have to run, I'm reading the mega review of Snow Leopard over at Ars Technica, it's a beauty, check it out if you can.