I think the problem is me, I'm an idiot. Ignorant, but no excuse. I don't think I realized that the popup was from Handcent, and not the stock sms program. I guess the fix is to turn popup in Handcent off, then.
I guess I didn't read very carefully. I thought you knew that and were just trying to get it to auto rotate. I myself find hat pop up to be quite useful in being able to reply quickly.