I use these to lines to make sure all the analog and comparator stuff is killed dead...

ANSEL = %00000000 ' Disable Analogue Inputs
CMCON = %00000111 ' Disable Comparators

Looking at your photos it looks as if Pin37 of the LCD R/W is connected via a blue/green wire to pin 13 of the PIC RB7. There also seems to be an additional brown wire flying off somewhere from this pin. Where does the other end of that connect to ?

Try with the R/W line connected directly to 0V as you only need to write to the PIC.

One other point... I suggested putting LEDs on the PIC and observing it counting up to ensure that the count operated correctly. You said that you tested the pins with a logic probe, presumabley one pin at a time just to observe the two different states.

The reason I suggested the LEDs is that when I first used a 16F88 I hadnt killed all the analogue bits properly and although I could turn an LED on on any pin, when I changed another pin the first LED would go out.

The reason being that updating a pin involves reading the port register for the existing values, modifying it and writing it back. If any analogue stuff is still enabled the pin reads as a zero and will get set to zero even though it was previously a one.

Do you have access to a "normal" HD44780 display of any size just to test that your PIC is correctly configured. From what I have seen so far there shouldt be any real problems getting this display to work as it is 44780 compatible. If you try with a normal display and it still doesnt work then something isnt right with the PIC. Once you have that working it should just be a matter of swapping the displays.