Fixed it! Read somewhere about 'home' taking time, so I changed the code to:

PAUSE 500 ; wait for LCD to initialise

loop:
LCDOUT $FE,1 ; clear screen and return cursor to top-left
PAUSE 100 ; wait for cursor to be moved to top-left!
LCDOUT "Hello"
PAUSE 500
LCDOUT $FE,1 ; clear screen and return cursor to top-left
PAUSE 100 ; wait for cursor to be moved to top-left!
LCDOUT "World"
PAUSE 500
goto loop


I would think the PAUSE 100 could be significantly reduced, but I'll fiddle with that later. The main thing is, the display is working! [was beginning to wonder!]

Best regards to all, and don't give up on a fault... there's always a solution out there :P