Thanks to all who answered on this question; your answers helped me clear up the problems I was having. As it turns out, I made some of these foolish errors (redefining via \setromanfont repeatedly, for instance) because one of the first fonts I'd tried for the project didn't automatically use boldface and italics (which was weird, as every font I'd tried before (and I've been using XeTeX for a few years now, but without much need for multiple fonts in a document) had done so without issue), and that was my first go at fixing it, which worked (surprisingly, in retrospect), but which left these long-standing page number (and likely other, more subtle) problems behind.
This has helped me better understand the font-selection process — a long-term win. Thanks again! Wm -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex
