Sorry for shouting but ... FOUND THE SOLUTION!!!!! Apparently, for COM+ to work on remote server or in service, Apartment Threading needs to be on; Unattended Execution; and Retain in memory needs to be on as well! It works like a dream now! I refer you to :
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q264/9/57.asp and
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q241/8/96.asp
One of my friends stumbled upon it while searching for something else.
Thank you SO much for all your help and effort ... I really appreciate it