Good news; M6 does fix the password bug present in M5 (GUI Yast2). I was able to finally correct the repo problem in GUI Yast2 (was not present in CLI yast).
One nitpick still present in M6 (was also in M5) is a delay in the screen resolution settling at 1920x1080 NI (default); I’m not sure whether this has been bugged or not (and the issue could be X-related, driver-related, or even related to KDE, since it’s a delay, not a refusal).
FYI, by the time I found out about the workarounds, M6 had hit the repos (I had clean-installed M5 late); second, I did NOT get info on a kernel-update because i didn’t have e default repo set (due to the aforementioned PW bug). LAstly, doing a kernel update (updating the kernel and nothing else) usually breaks anything dependent on the kernel.
I was primarily posting as an FYI for those that were still suffering from the aforementioned bug (and therefore still using M5) that it may actually make more sense to do a full upgrade to M6 as opposed to continuing to use one of the workarounds or a kernel update by itself (besides, doesn’t M6 have the same kernel recommended as an update for the M5 bug?)
A full upgrade (KDE M5 to KDE M6) is less than 400 packages and took me thirty minutes (including download time).