For anyone struggling with me, I have a little better behavior now. While I haven't fully tested, my changes appear to have worked. I took 4.1.4, followed the instructions up to here:
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* STEP 7 *
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Enable the USPS shipping module:
Go to the shipping module page, Admin -> Modules -> Shipping.
Click the green button next to United States Postal Service.
after this, I ran the following script:
UPDATE configuration
SET configuration_value = UPPER(configuration_value),
set_function='tep_cfg_select_multioption(array(''EXPRESS'', ''PRIORITY'', ''FIRST CLASS'', ''PARCEL'', ''BPM'', ''LIBRARY'', ''MEDIA''), '
WHERE configuration_key='MODULE_SHIPPING_USPS_TYPES';
I can't promise this is exactly best solution...it just appears to be working for me which is why I thought I would offer for those similarly struggling as I was. Thanks.