right, i've placed serout2's after every single initialisation line and i discoverd something REALLY confusing...

The serout2's stopped after this line...

Code:
TRISE = 255
Why on earth would a TRISE operation affect serout2 command on PORTD?

To prove it, i commented out the TRISE command and everything works perfectly...

so, why does the TRISE cause a problem with SEROUT2