I've been having some trouble with kernel 2.6.9. Every so often, in X, my system will freeze and I have to reboot. I thought that maybe it was the NVidia drivers (I am using the modified NVidia 6111 Linux drivers for the 2.6.9 kernel), so I switched my driver setting in xorg.conf from "nvidia" to "nv" (which is how it used to be set before I installed the NVidia drivers). However, my system still freezes.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the 2.6.9 kernel, as this never happened with earlier kernels.

If I decide to revert back to kernel 2.6.8.1 can I still use my existing kernel .config file? Or will that cause errors during the kernel compile (due to the extra features added between the 2.6.8.1 and 2.6.9 kernels)?

You can revert to the kernel version you want. Just do the config step right, maybe do not load your
.config file from 2.6.9 but instead open 2 make xconfig (in X, one for 2.6.8.1 and one for 2.6.9) and
ajust setting accordingly (just loading the 2.6.9 config in 2.6.8.1 make xconfig may work just fine but
in case...).

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IF you kept the 2.6.8.1 source directory, the .config and system.map and bzImage should still be in it............

I never delete a kernel source until I know for sure an upgraded kernel is going to work properly.............5+ reboots at least........or 2-3 weeks-- it just depends

Unfortunately I didn't keep my 2.6.8.1 source directory.