The following is my setup:

lorien:/etc# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333]
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8366/A/7 [Apollo KT266/A/333 AGP]
00:06.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905 100BaseTX [Boomerang]
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233 PCI to ISA Bridge
00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT8233/A/C/VT8235 PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:11.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 1b)
00:11.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 1b)
00:11.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 1b)
00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233/A/8235 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 10)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 [GeForce2 MX/MX 400] (rev b2)
lorien:/etc# lsmod
Module Size Used by
nvidia 2074440 12
snd_via82xx 25856 0
snd_pcm 97956 1 snd_via82xx
snd_timer 26116 1 snd_pcm
snd_ac97_codec 62852 1 snd_via82xx
snd_page_alloc 12420 2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
snd_mpu401_uart 8192 1 snd_via82xx
snd_rawmidi 25504 1 snd_mpu401_uart
snd_seq_device 8584 1 snd_rawmidi
snd 55652 7 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_ac97_codec,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
ip_tables 18176 0
via82cxxx_audio 29320 0
soundcore 10080 2 snd,via82cxxx_audio
ac97_codec 19084 1 via82cxxx_audio
ide_scsi 15364 0
lorien:/etc#

Strangely however 'amixer' tells me there is no device and I have not devices in /proc/asound/cards - any ideas folks?

Remove the via82cxxx_audio from /etc/modules or wherever it gets loaded from if you have discover install then remove it so it will stop loading the module. Next make sure that you have alsa-base and alsa-utils installed. Oh and you may want to get rid of that 2.6.3 kernel as well I notice you have ide-scsi loaded and you are going to get nothing but trouble when you try to burn a CD it locked my machine solid tonight with K3b and I had to pull the plug could not even ssh in to try to shutdown and burning from the command line gave all kinds of data too long errors, upgrading to 2.6.4-rc3 solved the problem though.