Well, I have come up with what I call my "ugly solution" for right now, which is to build in exclusions to certain CSS rules in such a way as to make IE use the text instead of the background images.
The a new CSS file named "style(uglysolution).css" is located
HERE.
Just change the filename back to "style.css" to see how it works.
What a kludge.
::sigh::
UPDATE: I'm looking at the way they did it over on PureVolume.com and see that they used a <DIV> to wrap the linked text inside the <li> items. They're still using a <span>, but they *are* using positioned text and.... new code to gnaw on....