the firmware is the 3.0.1 version, which i have to say has worked wonderfully so far (minus this little glitch), no more crashes, no slo-mo kindle.
i did a re-check with the text that _wouldn't_ go back to its dark self after refreshed, i went back to the ODT, making sure i the text colour was "automatic" in (brown had been previously selected
and i suspect parts of the text were brown whilst otehrs were the standard "automatic"). i converted to .PRC and loaded it on my K3.
the text is uniform now.
phew!