when I use KDM to launch KDE, my appearance/theme settings are different from when I use startx from the commandline (i don't boot into an X system or KDM initially b/c I do too much tinkering around and sometimes I rely on having the commandline available )

how do I set KDM so that it uses the settings that KDE uses when I use startx? is it possible to do the same for other
environments (ie enlightenment), or does this issue only apply
to KDE (i haven't changed up anything in enlightenment yet,
so I'm just asking in advance) ??

that's very strange. All the kde settings are in .kde and .kderc so there shouldn't be any difference between starting it from kdm or startx unless you do startx as a different user (say you start it as root but I suppose that's not what you're doing).
sorry, not being helpful ...