Okay, seeing as how I cross-posted this thread into two bimmerpost sub-forums and across a couple of bmw sites...I have an answer to this problem, sort of. I'm posting the info/link into each thread, to keep people up to date.
KevinO provided all the relevant info on the e90post iDrive sub-forum.
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=182906
In a nutshell, it seems to be a known problem with the new iDrive, and will hopefully be fixed up with a software update.