We haven't seen your error messages, we only have symptoms you have described to us.
The "dotted and unpleasant to the eye" screen you describe could indicate a problem with pekwm or a problem with X Windows. Along with sharing those error messages from .xsession-errors, you might look for error messages in /var/log/Xorg.0.log as well, as that is where X stores information, warning, and error messages.
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