Gene, I don't believe it should matter in which order you configure the
pins. I configured mine after the Open2USART call and it works fine.
You can see what that function is doing by looking at the source in
your \mcc18\src\... directory.
When in doubt as to what Microchip's functions do, it's always a good
idea to explicitly configure a peripheral according to the datasheet,
or create your own function. For the USARTs, for example, go to page
197 of the PIC18FXX20 datasheet.
I'm glad you guys got it working. This issue has been added to our FAQ at:
http://www.innovationfirst.com/firstrobotics/faq/
New FRC Default Code is now online to fix this issue.
Regards,
The Firmware Team
Innovation First, Inc.