Thanks Lance!

Yep... have found out that Sears has issued a service bulletin on this,
which requires replacement of the touchpad and control board. Full cost
to be paid by the customer, of course. ($450+). I called them this
morning in the hopes maybe they would fix it at no or reduced cost. No
dice.

It's just.... sad.

Thanks for the tip on pressing the cotton button - I didn't know that.
I'm thinking of seeing if the touchpad can be taken apart and
cleaned......

For anyone else struggling with this issue, here is a link to a thread
which provides some more info:
http://applianceblog.com/forums/forum3/56.html