Awareness works sometimes in Sametime, or for certain people, or I don't see myself as online

Probably a case issue...
see

Upper/Lower case discrepancies in DN cause problems with Awareness in Common PIM and Domino portlets

Question You are using one or more of the Lotus® Domino® and Extended Products Portlets or Common PIM Portlets with IBM® WebSphere® Portal. You initially have trouble with Awareness working in the portlet(s), but after you follow the troubleshooting script, "Troubleshooting Sametime Awareness in WebSphere Portal" (#1163790), the STLinks applet loads correctly in your browser.
However, you then notice that either no Awareness functionality ever appears in your browser, or if your name appears multiple times on a page, some will show Awareness (for example, green icon to symbolize a person is logged into Sametime and available, etc.) while others do not.
...

.. though in addition to the stlink.js change listed there, the one I was sent also has this:

1748,1756d1747
<
< //fix for PMR 73450,SGC,724 -- stcl portlet fails to load mixed case awareness.
<
< if(!STlinksCaseSensitive) {
< linkId = linkId.toLowerCase();
< }
<

now why didn't they put that there?

Generally their support is okay (at least after you get off the web and get someone on the phone).. is this to require maintenance ?

.... okay, I thought that fixed it.
I swear I saw it work.
But I am still seeing issues.

Will update later....