Update

Well, I did some more troubleshooting of the camera last night, and a bit of searching on the internet for others with similar problems, and came up with two things.

1. The clicking is normal - it is due to the image stabilization feature being turned on, and turning IS off eliminates the clicks.
2. The LCD is just hosed - not an issue that I've found others having and it hasn't gone away. Still waiting on a call back from the vendor to exchange this bad boy. If I don't get a message back by noon tomorrow (since I really doubt anyone is going to call back on a Sunday) I'll be on the horn tomorrow afternoon. I'm within the return period so they should exchange it for me without a problem.

I've got to run off to teach my crochet class and I haven't yet had a chance to upload the pics I took yesterday to see if the camera is otherwise functioning normally. However, the scrambled LCD makes using the menus a pain so unless they have a magic fix for me, it's going back.