Thanks a million for the prompt feedback!
It's exaclty the route I'd like to take, and it saves a lot of headaches (in my opinion).. I can transition systems with hopefully little disruption using this approach.. the alternate route or trying to upgrade the vCentre install and the DB i think would just overcomplicate and draw out the process. Granted it's not the ideal way to do it.. we'd all like to do it perfect and by the book, but sometimes you have to take an alternate path.. the finer grained polishing to get it up to the 'perfect setup' will come in time
thanks again!