This is actually a solution that I'm posting, rather than a problem. (Go figure.)

I have 2 ATI Radeon 5700HD cards, and I run them in Crossfire mode.

I was trying everything I could think of to get this game to run properly, because otherwise I could start it up but there was an incessant screen flickering whenever there was a 'glow' effect.

Randomly I tried shutting off Crossfire, and boy, what a surprise. The flickering has stopped completely. Just passing along the news to any other Crossfire users out there.

Edit: Unfortunately, I still can't seem to get the enhanced graphics or whatever they were to work again. I used to have a GeForce card on my old computer, and I remember a lot of the ships and planets being a lot more... 'shiny' and reflective. They look kinda blah right now.