ok so...

cacls.exe is the old school version (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/
834721)

xcacls.exe was the next iteration

xcacls.vbs was the updated version that popped up a few years ago and
addressed many of the issues by the previous iterations (http://
support.microsoft.com/kb/825751)

icacls is the version included in vista.... (http://
technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/library/403edfcc-328a-479d-
b641-80c290ccf73e1033.mspx?mfr=true)

i do thank you for your suggestions al, but going back to an outdated,
buggy version of a tool that has been updated a number of times, IMO,
is not the way to go.

The change is not inherited when setting with any of the above command
line tools, without switching /t, which causes the long delays and
processing of every file anyway.

Im sure it's just a trial and error thing, so i'll put in the required
time - i was just hoping that people that have run into this before
(there will be plenty of them) may have commented on this.