Hey Rob, thanks for the prompt! I've uninstalled XI - just in case - and wiped off the dust on Acrobat 8, along with its all 18 (eighteen!) updates up to 8.3.1. ISO profiles I needed were missing but it was easy to fix. And finally - yes, it works beautifully now. Thank you!
P.S. And of course big thanks to guys at Adobe for making me feel 9 years younger