Yes sorry I should be more specific, in fact I should be specific as possible to help nail down some of the discrepancies surrounding this issue. So my setup is this.
a. Running both the server (Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition fully updated) and the client (Winows XP Professional fully updated) in vmware ver 1.0.9.
b. I set the Remove Client from database after X days option to 1 when I did this test. I waited an extra 12 hours after the 1 day to make sure the client would be successfully purged.
c. I then reintroduced the client to the network
d. I have them set up to pull definitions every hour, so after I reintroduced the client I waited an extra two hours to make positive I got a heartbeat in there where the SEPM could "find" the client on the heartbeat.
To answer you other questions I don't think you should have to be the one to take the bullet and test this out. Hey that is what I am here for right? So if you want to give me a specific setup ie) windows server 2003 with SAV 10 then I can test it out. I have access to all of the Symantec products plus any Microsoft OS. So whatever you need just tell me and I will run some test. Honestly you can open a case if you want, but it seems like they have quite a few open "investigating" as we speak so it might not do too much good. Also this issue happened mainly with SAV from what I see, but there are also reports of it happening in almost every version of SEP too so who knows? Let me know what you think as well as any settings you might want me to change for my next run at this.
Grant-
PS
If it were up to me I would hire you tomorrow to help with tech support lol. Hopefully you are getting enough rewards points to at least get a cool iPod or a trip to Hawaii or something.