Thanks, Ken for the information. By themselves, the switched didn't help. But using Chiquita's suggestions in combination with these switches did the trick.

1) Went through all the 'recurring' appointments and deleted the ones which gave errors (while opening).
2) Restarted Outlook with /resetfolders /cleanreminders /cleanfreebusy

Interestingly, when I did a search on "resetfolders cleanreminders cleanfreebusy", I got a NUMBER of threads (including 'outlookforum.com') which disucss this issue. The consensus seems to be: If you are using Sony Clie (OR Intellisync Lite) and Outlook 2003, this is a common issue!

Anyway, thanks!
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