Thanks a lot once again cat.
I'm pretty familiar with external interface. I wrote a similar construct to pull off the javascript equivalent of swapDepths and called it from flash to handle the stacking order of two divs (each holder their own swf) depending on weather or not the top div had it's drop down menu exposed. If the drop down was hidden, the second div was stacked on top so as to not have its interactivity overridden by the blank space provided for the drop down.

It took an entire day to write only to have IE6 fail to respect z-depth and stack the divs anyway. It's precisely the reason I was looking for a smarter style, div, embed combo using some sort of a 100% here and overflow there. Are you sure there is no hope on that road?

I guess I'm still figuring what kinds things I should resist doing. Right now its javascript as a whole.

Would you go so far as to say that, since javascript needs to be running in order to use the swfobject anyway, as long as you have a universal function, use of js is good, even recommended practice?

For instance, I see that 'DOM sniffer' set up a lot. Using if(!document.getElementById) and then testing for responses to known give aways. Seems pretty standard but they each seem to have their little differences.

this function sends any div to any z-index if one is passed or the next highest depth if one is not passed.
Code:
var zInd = 300;

function upEl(theDiv, zDepth) {
	if( document.layers ) {
		theDiv = document.layers['myDiv6C'].document.layers[theDiv];
	} else {
		theDiv = getRefToDiv(theDiv);
	}
	if( !theDiv ) { window.alert( 'Nothing works in this browser.' ); return; }
	if( theDiv.style ) { theDiv = theDiv.style; }
	if(zDepth){
		theDiv.zIndex = zDepth;
	}else{
		theDiv.zIndex = zInd; zInd++;
	}
}
As you can see, it's a slightly different recipe than your resizeMovie technique. (I found this script so I have no idea what the myDiv6C is all about but it works)

Seeing differences like that is just enough to give me less than complete confidence and I'm getting pretty sick of not being able to guarantee my work. It's matter of pride and reputation.

Would you say you are at the point where your confident that no matter the need, you can predict for all the top 5 (opera, safari, IE6, IE7, FF)? Is that something that comes with time or is there an article out there that demystifies the whole thing?