Ok, this is becoming EXCEEDINGLY annoying.
I went back in time and got a saved project file out of my archives, I opened the file. In that project I had 5 different instrument tracks saved with the same instruments set up. Selected the track and unmuted. I DID get sound from my keyboard... but delayed by about the same delay I mentioned before, about half a sec. It was as though the MIDI was going from the Akai, to the PC, to my project, then being monitored, and the MONITORING of the MIDI signal was routed to ANOTHER plugin and spitting audio back out at me, thus creating the delay.
SO - I went to the john, and when I came back... NO AUDIO COULD BE HEARD.
I didn't change anything, but during my time away, the autosave may have functioned. Some settings would have been saved into my file, so now I can't hear audio from MIDI.
WHAT GIVES???!?