just to give you guys a heads up, i have solved the issue, well, only
in a manner of speaking, the problem is probably with ff3 new method of
archiving profiles. in my case, old profile (and therefore old clipmark
tool) was superimposed upon the new profile (and thus new CM version)
whilst restoring bookmarks (via foxmarks) in ff3.
the problem did not go away, so i have created a different user and re-installed cm 3.5 and voila'! it works fine.
just thought you would like to know.
i have let eric et al know, so it stands to reason that they will know how to address the issue next time it comes up