GauGau:
Thanks for your reply, the information in the 1.5.x docs, and the assurance of help!
Well, as it turns out, I ran out of time and I went ahead and did the manual upgrade, and I had no real problem.
It was a momentary mystery how to backup the database, but I eventually found a host control panel that did the trick. (Maybe the doc could say something brief about how this is done generally, what to look for.)
I also had a brief bad moment when I couldn't locate "anycontent.php", which I'm supposed to save -- but I discovered it is optional and I had not created one. (Be nice for the doc to mention "optional -- won't exist unless you create it").
As I said in my original post, I was a bit nervous about the mysterious bits, such as how I would re-establish a connection to the database had my upgrade attempt failed and I was forced to start from scratch. I have no idea whatsoever how a php app talks to a database; I don't expect you to teach me in the cpg docs, but, I dunno, maybe a pre-install script to reveal potentially useful information -- other side of the coin to the "check file versions" run afterwards, maybe.
The largest "issue" was managing files between the folder containing the new version, the local copies of the installation, and the server files. It's a bit unnerving to have to sort these out manually, seems accident-prone, to be done only when one is fresh and coffee'd up.
If the install/upgrade procedure is going to require such hands-on care, maybe it could be structured to merge into a new directory, so the old installation could be left functioning until a very specific, unitary switch-over action, one that's easy to reverse, too. Just an idea.
Solved!
Thanks,
Henry