Well ... an update!
I feel so lucky! I used Photorec (Knoppix LiveCD) and was able to recover the vast majority of my photos (around 4000), many of my documents, and a number of zips containing my source code.

Of the data recovered, there was about a 1/100 ratio of corrupted/overwritten files. It wasn't perfect, but I ain't complaining!

I've since then used UBCD4Win and PhotoRec to recover data from corrupted drives at work.

Thank you all for your input! I learned more new stuff!