Sorry to bore you guys with all of this but that's the wonderful thing about forums --
MORAL support.

I now have that eureka moment.

As it turns out, my ultimate intention was to use an RS485 line driver with my wireless because that's the way my wired connection is set up.

But all of my experiments were with the driver out and RS232...I figured I'd work my way up.

Bottom line....

If you want to use N1200 in your PICS, use an SN75176 and simply reverse A and B on the 485 side.

Works great now.

For the life of me though, I couldn't get the RS232 hardware inversion to work.

HIP HIP FRIGGIN HOORAY.