*deep breath*
Yes, I think my confusion has been "people" telling me that I need to define a CNAME for the www, when it may turn out that deleting it altogether may be the solution. Also the wait time and caching in between configuration changes does not help. But yes again, I'm aware that my issue is with my DNS config and not with WP or the mapping plugin.
Will check back in tomorrow when I can be sure my latest changes are up to date.
thanks again for your time! :)
-jennyb