avr_fred:
Let’s back up a second.
always a good idea ! 
avr_fred:
- is there any visible activity from the LED’s upon power up or when the reset button is pressed?
yes, there is activity - i hadn't thought of pressing the reset button when using the ICSP connection - but have just tested it and it (the LED) does go out when the button is pressed.
avr_fred:
2) have you attempted to upload a sketch via FDTI/serial device? If so, what board type/attributes did you use?
ahh yes, i'd forgotten all about the CH340G device which now works (with the Breaduino).
i have just tested it with the Lilypad and got the generic "not_in_sync" error - it's looking increasingly like a (fuse?) mismatch between the onboard crystal (which is likely to be 16 MHz) and the IDE 'boards.txt' which has the standard 8 MHz setting.
avr_fred:
3) what did you do (command line, ide selection, etc) that generated error message in #9?
that message in #9 was from a failed attempt at "uploading using programmer" (IDE 1.0.5) via the ICSP connections - UNO to Lilypad; 11,12,13, 5V and GND, respectively - and the RESET connection (pin 10 on UNO, RESET pin on Lilypad - no 10k res, no 0.1 uF cap. - just to be explicit !)
i have since found this thread which seems to be exactly my situation;
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=293009.0
it looks straightforward enough, and i have checked i do have the ATmegaBOOT_168_atmega328.hex file in the Arduino \bootloaders directory, so that should solve things...