I was told by a "systems expert" that the cache was probably using most of the memory.
Apparently in times of low cpu utilization, but higher i/o, the system will allocate memory for cache. As long as there aren't a lot of applications demanding memory, it will use most of the memory for cache.
I don't remember the cache value before we reset the system, but after the reset, the memory stayed in 200-400 meg range. As the memory rose, the cache rose also.
This particular expert said that the behavior is common in Linux RH AS systems and in Solaris.
Apparently, had we not panicked on this and started loading up the system with applications, the cache would have washed out.
Glen