So here's the story:

The car died and stranded my traffic, which made for a bit of a hectic day yesterday :)

Once I got it home I changed the belt - and after inspecting it I could tell the old one did dearly need to be changed - but it didn't fix the problem at all.

Either the alt itself or the voltage regulator is gone. I got my hands on one from the local guy I spoke of earlier who had one stripped off another car, but it's an aftermarket one (the OEM one was still on the block and I needed it right away... I may go back and get IT as a spare now :) we'll see...) but it seems to have done the trick.

I had hoped I could manage doing the swap without taking the power steering pump off, but I don't think it's possible. I took it off anyway. I guess it took about 3 hours to get the old stuff out and put the replacement in. Putting it back together was much faster once I learned where all the bolts/nuts were and how to reach them.

Anyway I think I'm out of the woods on this one and I'd like to thank everyone for their help and advice.