heya!
a big step forward!
just thought i'd let you (others) know that i've installed G2b3, enabled/setup the mod_rewrite module (on the G2 Site Admin), copied the .htaccess file out of my G2 base dir (www/gallery2/.htaccess) and put it into my vB base dir (www/.htaccess), and it's workin!
we can now use bbcode [ i m g ] tags out of our gallery install again! (the pictures now retain their .jpg extension or whatever instead of a long database name)
w00t!
no changes to any files/templates other then the .htaccess files.
now we just gotta get that random block working...