Great breakdown Vince.

A couple comments.

Q: Why is the ending memory in use higher than the opening number (399MB – G1 vs. 278MB – A1) after exiting all programs loaded above?
A: Some applications leave behind small active parts of themselves (perhaps in the toolbar) and some simply do not cleanup after themselves very well. The system may also have serious issues trying to optimally manage this resource. This can become a major problem as your day progresses.

This is often caused by services that are started when an application starts, but does not stop when the program is exited. This is LAZY programming in most cases.

Back under the Performance tab of Task Manager, I like to look at the Peak value. The Peak value is the maximum amount of memory the system has used since last boot. If this value is more than the total amount of system ram installed, then you need to install more RAM as it means your system is banging on the slow HD's page file a lot.

Also note that Windows expects to see and will use a PF, even if it has tons of RAM.