WordPress MU

I'm using WPMU 2.8.6 and have sub-directory URL structure (domain.com/blog/)...I have about a dozen+ blogs set up and working fine, but all of the sudden when I create a new blog they're not displaying any posts: the default post, nor am I able to create a new post. I can click to create a new post, but when I publish it does not display in the blog, nor does it show in the Posts area of Admin. I imagine it is not saving at all even though it appears to be. I'm wondering if this has something to do with the fact that I tried to change the name of my WPMU install via Site Admin->Options->"Site Name" and also changed the name of my "root" blog (blog_id=1)? I checked my database to try to trouble-shoot a little and it looks like the usual tables are being created properly for a new blog, but I'm not too sure where else to look to trouble-shoot at this point? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Here is an example of a non-working blog on my install: http://blogs.empire-edutools.net/blog-test

ok, further trouble-shooting...I tried uploading a new Media file in a blog and it uploads fine, but when I go to see a list of Media it is not there. I look in blogs.dir and the file is there. Strange?

upon further investigation I find that the default Post and Page are being created properly in the db and it even displays a number count on the Manage Post page to properly show the number of posts: "Published(2)", but they're not in the list below. ugh!!

haha...since I've had this entire forum post to myself ;) somebody might find this useful...I checked my error log and saw there were a lot of missing Sticky Posts. I had the Sticky Post plugin automatically enabled for new blogs. I deactivated and all seems fine.

Sticky Posts are also built in, why add a plugin to do it?