Swampdog, following the instructions and having a separate directory for the EQEmu would be too simple.
Read the hundreds of posts of : "Oops, I patched, now what?" and "Oops, I patched, when will you fix it?" etc...
I am NOT saying people are stupid, but I am saying that for whatever reason, the majority do not listen to instructions.
RTFM and all that...
I think in most of the tutorials about "How to play on EQEmu" backing up the EQ directory and changing the shortcut (or using EQW) is like step 1 and 2. :P
Ah, well, these constantly recurring issues are what give us something to respond to anyway...
~Gandar