Waywocket

And I STILL can't get the toolset to work

In the other thread, Yovaneth got it to work using the side-by-side database installation. Did that not work for you?

Additionally, I'm not certain that it actually starts the needed database service automatically, so you could try checking that.

I ran the installer, and the toolset installs fine. Something about SQL05 didn't install, but I can remember which. It was the last or second last component. I already have express 08, though. It points me to a wiki which has nothing on it.

I don't work with databases, so I wouldn't know where to begin to check if the database exists.

Myst

If you go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services, there should be a service called something like 'SQL Server <something>' - I don't know exactly since I don't have that version. Make sure that's started. You could also run the toolset configuration program in the 'Dragon Age\tools' directory, and see if it's set to 'default database'. It might be worth reinstalling the toolset though so you can check exactly what the error was, and post it to the BioWare tech support forum.

And I STILL can't get the toolset to work

In the other thread, Yovaneth got it to work using the side-by-side database installation. Did that not work for you?

Additionally, I'm not certain that it actually starts the needed database service automatically, so you could try checking that.

Sleep + Nightmare == Oh yes!

Did I read somewhere that there's an NPC/NPC romance possible, or did I dream that?

Might be worth reporting that then, on the official forums or something? I doubt they'll consider it high priority though.
There's no problem with side-by-side installation (I've done loads of them at work) - it might mean a little more disk space is used, if that's a worry, but I doubt it'll harm performance.