As it turns out, my above posts have several incorrect statements/assumptions.
a) We have not tested shp2sde at 10.1, since we are using direct connect and have not installed SDE on the unix server. shp2sde does work at 9.3.1, and that is as far as I can confirm.
b) It would appear that we are not using SDO geometry, but in fact, SDEBINARY geometry. I am trying to confirm this but am struggling to find the definitive answer.
Any help would be appreciated.
Closing in on beer-thirty... 🙂