Okay, I have tried everything I can think of and looked everywhere on the net but can't find anything on this specific weirdness. I have successfully compiled kernels four or five times now and have not run into any problems just following standard the usual procedure: as root: download kernel into directory /usr/src/linux,
zcat /proc/config.gz > /usr/src/linux/.config

make oldconfig
make menuconfig
make
make modules_install
cp arch/i386/boot/bzImage /boot/vmlinuz-etc,,,
cp System.map /boot etc

I have not had any problems until kernels 3.7.1 and 3.7.2.

But this is not the REALLY strange thing. I also used Slackpkg to upgrade the kernels to 3.7.1 and, using Grub2, was able to load them all into the menu. If I go to boot, they ALL panic with some message like "VFS: cannot find filesystem for root. or Please set root= to proper parameters."

So, I then installed the 3.2.* kernels from Slackware CD. Updated grub2.cfg. No problems with any of these kernels.

I don't know what to make of it.

In that case (and I've had it with 3.7.1) the root filesystem isn't compiled into the kernel. You can get away with that if you have an initrd with all the required modules in it. Far better to compile in your chipset drivers, and the filesystems of / and /boot; Maybe usb stuff if you're using a usb boot. Everything else can be modules.

No, it wasn't the file system strangely. But it was apparently something that I did leave unchecked in the SATA and PATA support section to with my disk controller possibly (?). Thank you for the help anyway though.