So I re-formatted my usb stick, redownloaded plop-linux, uncompressed it onto the stick, sys'd the stick, then tried booting it.
It worked fine.
Then I put the file with X, etc; into the /opt folder and booted.
It worked fine and now I'm in Gnome/FF.
Don't know what the cause of the previous issue was, but as usual with anything digital, a reboot and/or reformat/reinstall fixed it.
Now onto AV, etc;
thanks for the great tool!