The IE issue with the Intel Chipset Utility being blocked ended up being nothing more than my having disabled ActiveX scripting but forgetting all about it. Other than keeping IE up to date, I haven't used IE in years so it completely escaped me.
Thanks for the direct Intel link rdunnill. That was the first I had been able to find the release notes. And after all of this, I think I am just going to end up passing on updating it. There doesn't appear to be anything worthwhile that would apply to my system in that series.
Perhaps that solves most, if not all, of the mystery. That that series of drivers just didn't contain anything that my system would have been all that noticeable on after installing. With Dell listing it as recommended and the later driver version, I guess I just expected it would actually reflect the later driver versions in those devices. Perhaps it just doesn't as it sounds like the vast majority of that new driver series is branding and things that don't apply specifically to my setup. Occam's razor.
Think I might just learn to leave well enough alone from now on. I've never owned a pre-built PC before so I think blindly trusting the updated drivers section listed for my service tag might need to come with a little more apprehension from now on. I'm just hoping the remnants the installer left behind, as the installer unfortunately did not do a good job performing cleanup when it was completed (they never do), won't add any bloat or future issues to the registry.
Thanks again for everything.
