After spending all day yesterday bashing at trying to get the right parameters into u-boot (newest version) for SD card RFS support, all I got for my effort was that I found a bug in the latest u-boot (separate thread). The kernel panics instead of reading the RFS on the SD card. So, in desperation, I decided to try the above installer in hopes that the version of the kernel is the problem. In the end, the windows program falls over when it needs the ftdi drivers and the failure is resilient to all the debugging tips offered. I am now going start from scratch and HOPE (only plan left) that the v1.2 set of downloads include components that work together and support the RFS on SD card (I originally configured my plug with v1.1 of the documentation and downloads).
If anyone has a coherent, correct procedure (with version numbers of the components used) for getting the SD card to actually support the RFS, that would be an excellent contribution. For extra credit, the solution would either not include the FTDI driver mess or would explicate the way one might install and use the recommended drivers.