Sorry that I'm a lost lamb at tabling . . . how do I switch SBeamAglow to Beamglow4?
You should go to FreeSpace Modding forum or read the Wiki to do that kind of edits now. I personally agree that those beamglows need to change, but we'll be in a horrible mess if we start to tell people how to mod in this particular thread. It's cluttered enough as it is.
High Max - did you post an old debug log? Based on the screenshot of your FS2 folder, those extra VP's shouldn't be there. Make sure you're still running a debug build and check the "created" date on the log to make sure it's actually what is happening. Or, make sure there are no files hiding outside the window bounds with the Big Icons view that's actually possible). In fact, when posting screenies like that, it's better to use the listing or details view rather than Big Icons.
Also,
Int3(): From d:\steven\projects\fsscp\svn trunk - camera code\code\globalincs\windebug.cpp at line 1319
means you aren't running a recent Nightly build as suggested (or your debug log is outdated).
Interestingly, it looks like the shaders aren't compiling for some reason on High Max' computer...

Might be ATi's bad drivers or something else, I don't know.
Regarding the subspace effect - I agree with Goober. There's a difference between an effect upgrade and a mod - upgrades are supposed to look like the original effect but better, while mods can look whatever their designer wants them to look like.