oh, i did - as mentioned i cleaned the reservoir of all residual grime and re-filled it twice through repeated bleeding attempts - there was absolutely no air in the system and the pedal (which felt pretty good to start) didn't feel better or worse from this. the fluid continued to become dirty despite running new fluid through it. since the pedal didn't change one bit for better or worse, and it (pedal feel) wasn't necessarily bad in the first place (vs. what it has been like since i've owned the truck) i stopped bleeding it.

is it possible that a pedal with decent feel will still yield such a ridiculously low disengagement as a direct result of a grimed up slave and/or master cyl? and, would this just show up like it did, out of nowhere?

that is the thing that perplexes me - it just showed up. suddenly, the truck was hard to shift and the disengagement point was a mm off the floor. as soon as my foot moves like what seems a mm, the truck wants to go.

i've never had this issue with any of my vehicles - all fluids are usually kept clean as a whistle.