My original thought was to take a peek at the arm by removing the cover, however, after loosening the three screws, I discovered that the cover does not 'remove'. It does, however, rotate. I'm assuming that if you rotate it far enough something gets released or the cover comes off or something, but as I turned it, the friction actually increased. So, like the frightened newbie tech I am, I rotated it back and screwed the screws back in...
I had rotated the cover approximately through 2/3 of a turn (moving past two of the screw holes) counterclockwise and then clockwise back to it's original position. I tightened the screws but couldn't honestly say if they were as tight as previously.
After finishing, I checked the arm and it didn't move (held by the brake). As soon as I powered on the machine (assuming of course that I had totally destroyed the arm mechanism) the brake released and the computer promptly booted to the MacWorks desktop.
I did a jig, played around with the desktop, and then began restarting and rebooting to insure this wasn't a fluke.
Something was obviously interfering with the free movement of the arm and moving the cover freed it, but, let's be honest, I have no idea what actually occurred.
I'm letting the beast cool down completely and will try and boot again tomorrow AM to see if the magic is real.
Thanks again for the help!