gotjuice, i remember having the same issue with media monkey ratings. i don't remember the technical reason foobar won't read it, but it has something to do with MM using non-standard tag structures.
so here's what you do. in MM, make a seperate playlist for each rating (1 star, 2 star, etc). import those playlists into foobar, select all, set the appropriate rating, all will be well
tore - looking good!
your issue with the filetype ratings is odd. look at the path in the script, especially the filetype. i remember converting the ICO files i sent you a link for into PNG files to use with my config.
don't forget to make use of Replay Gain, it's a great tool to apply lossless normalization at either an album level or a track level.
also there's a scrobbler plugin if you use last.fm at all, it works great.
as you start to work on your playlist, let me know if you need any of my scripts
welcome to the wonderful world of foobar!