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Thanks for the answers... tonight I may have busted an important myth... I'm kind of hoping, anyway. After looking at the copper contacts on the keybed circuit board that the 'pills' make contact with, under a very good stereo microscope - I noticed there was what looked like a significant amount of what I'd call 'varnishing' where the pills had come into contact with them. This is not visible to the naked eye - unless your eyes are a hell of a lot better than mine - which is possible.I also checked the conductivity of the 'old' carbon pills and found them all to be pretty decent - somewhere in the 70 ohm range - certainly no better than i could do with 'keypad fix' or caikote 44.
So on a hunch I made a little ball of 00 grade steel wool that i held with tweezers and (through the microscope) went through and cleaned up ever copper pad so it appeared bright an shiny - WITHOUT doing any sort of reconditioning or recoating to the carbon pills themselves.
Result? A full keyboard of well behaved keys!! I see no reason that it won't stay that way for a few years (depending on how the 'varnish' on the copper is created - breakdown product in the rubber pill material perhaps?).
Anyway- i thought i'd share this with you - also a nice solution because it costs NOTHING outside of an hour or your time.