OK, so I decided to go ahead and just upgrade to the latest 1 series Dovecot and see if that solves my ACL/config issues I've been having.
(I tried compiling 2.0.9, but it errored out and I assume that's because it's a pretty old machine/compiler.)

Anyway, 1.2.16 compiled fine, and I installed it in another location from the currently running 1.1 series install. I have this new install running (IMAP) on a non-standard port while I test it out, and it starts fine and all seems well. However, I'm wondering, is it OK to run it and have it look at the same Maildir mailboxes as the currently running 1.1 series install? Does that have the potential to mess with indexes or change anything in a bad way? (FWIW, I tried it briefly, and after changing the port number in and restarting my mail client [Thunderbird], it had trouble pulling up the mailbox I was trying to access.)

David