Pat,
In your URL rewrite to remove index.php, you do you have a “?” in the RewriteRule? Can you try it with no rewrite?
I understand what you’re trying to do, but honestly if it were me, I would fold all of this into a module. You’d be able to take advantage of some security features in the $FNS->form_declaration() method. You’d also be able to get business logic out of the template and into a module file.
Also, why do you want to use $_GET as opposed to $_POST? Why take away from the “pretty urls?”
-greg