If this information is helpful to any others, I just 'successfully' moved my site to the root directory - on my 2nd attempt.
The above steps worked EXCEPT, I had to have my store 'open' to run the CDSEOPro sitemap generation (at least, that was my experience).
Also, Jon already has a tutorial (that I missed before) to do this move. -- thanks Jon
http://www.websitecm.com/x-cart-tutorials/moving-x-cart-to-root/
Peggy