Thanks for the complements
yeah, more than a few of them are a little soft. It turns out I *would* have been able to use my macro focus rails but I was having some sort of brain cramp and for some reason I was trying to put it together wrong. I was lying in bed last night at 12:30 when I realized it and of course just *had* to get up and see if I was right -- and I was. dumbass. I used my tripod in the normal way for a few but otherwise they are all handheld, which is definitely accounts for the softness. When you're dealing w/ a DOF measured in fractions of millimeters, the slightest movement from the intended point is gonna throw the focus plane backwards or forwards. I'm definitely gonna go back and try again in a couple weeks and use much smaller apertures (most were essentially wide open) so I can be assured of getting everything in sharp focus.
And since most were handheld, I can't really account for what effect, if any, that mirror-slap might have had. Once I get lots of tripod shots where I *know* everything should be tack-sharp, then I'd be able to assess that. In general, though, I've read that it's really not that big of an issue. I also have the wireless remote, which I'd definitely use w/ the tripod. unfortutely it is a piece-o-crap compared w/ the wired remote I had for my F100.
I don't know why Nikon doesn't make one that plugs into the USB port. Seems like it'd be tailor made for such a thing.
As for how I got so close, where I went was the
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago's Lincoln Park, where they have a year-round "Butterfly Haven". You'd be surprised at how good of models the butterflies are -- they'll sit on a leaf or flower for 5,10,15,30 minutes without so much moving an antennae, even when only 1ft away using a flash. Some were pickier eaters, flitting from flower to flower but many were like they were frozen. It's definitely a fun exercise. The 105mm 2.8 micro lens definitely helps as well. It's probably my favorite lens and the one I use most often for portraits. Next time I go back I'm also gonna ues my polarizer more often as that might bring out some of the colors a little better even though the greenhouse has very diffuse light.
The website listed above has some pretty amazing stuff. I'll have to review that and a book I've got before giving it another go ... which is the great thing about digital in that you never have to worry about film cost !
However, you do not really need a (D)SLR + macro lens to do it. Quite a few compact digicams can do it w/ their dedicated macro modes, but you would need to get extremely close as Neil assumed -- and not all such digicams work best at full telephoto for macro shooting. As I understand it though, it seems that bugs often just stay still for you once you get w/in a certain distance. Well, that's what I've been told by Don Ellis over in dpreview anyway -- of course, he coulda just been joking now that I think of it. 
