Okay, after reading other messages on this board I went through and made sure that there was no capitalization of any of my images or file-names, and everything began working again.
This capitalization issue is somewhat confusing as I copied my folder structure over from a Joomla 1.0 version that was working correctly with the 1.0 compatible version of Simple Image Gallery Pro, so it didn't make sense that the Joomla 1.5 compatible version would suddenly have a problem with the same data.
Anyway, if you're experiencing anything even somewhat similar, make sure you check to make sure your file and folder names are lowercase and, for good measure, that they include no spaces or characters other than letters, numbers, dashes, and underscores.
The support used to be remarkably responsive here, but I suspect something must be going on in the developers' personal lives that has caused the sudden cessation in support.
So, to both customers and developers, good luck with your problems everyone.