I’d forgotten until recently I’d posted about this here, although I solved the problem some time later which is now long ago. That said, I felt I should close this out with the answer, which was two-fold. First, I discovered that the contacts on the ignition switch were a bit corroded and losing connection. First attempt I pulled the unit, cleaned/burnished the contacts(little tricky, but not awful) reassembled and had noticeable improvement; yet the problem remained. Replaced ignition switch unit- further improvement(i.e. dying even less often); yet problem still remained. Finally found the other half of the issue, the frakking main relay unit, as of course covered by our hero Eric years ago(2009- He’s so cute!! Though I think he looks more ‘handsome’ now.) in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viIZ8k60awY
Just re-soldered all the connections, and it’s been perfect ever since. It’s entirely possible I didn’t need to replace the ignition switch and the cleaning/burnishing of the contacts on the old unit would have been enough, making this a “free” repair, but oh well. It’s fixed, it’s done, on to the next adventure.
Good luck to future folks searching for the answer to this problem.
P.S. – I’m a professional solder-jockey. It’s obvious Eric is not, & has never claimed to be(he has other talents ‘a plenty). If you do find yourself wanting/needing to do some soldering/re-soldering, please take the time to review a few basic soldering tutorials to ensure your best chance of success in your endeavor.