Hoorah!   Hoorah!

TLSXPA: Entering interactive session.
TLSXPA: Sending command: date
TLSXPA: Requesting service exec on channel 1.
TLSXPA: channel 1: open confirm rwindow 0 rmax 32768
TLSXPA: input_channel_request: rtype exit-status reply 0
TLSXPA: channel 1: rcvd eof
TLSXPA: channel 1: output open -> drain
TLSXPA: channel 1: rcvd close
TLSXPA: channel 1: input open -> closed
TLSXPA: channel 1: close_read
TLSXPA: channel 1: obuf empty
TLSXPA: channel 1: output drain -> closed
TLSXPA: channel 1: close_write
TLSXPA: channel 1: send close
TLSXPA: channel 1: full closed
 exit   '0'
 stdout 'Tue Dec  9 23:28:44 CST 2003'

I added Scott Scecina's repository as advised

  rep add soulcage http://www.soulcage.net/ppds.58/
[download]

then moved the repository higher in the list that PPM3 was looking at, then uninstalled both Net-SSH-W32Perl and Net-SSH-Perl, then re-installed Net-SSH-W32Perl from his repository, and huzzah!

And after reading his ERRATA.txt comments, where he said he'd modified Net::SFTP to understand to use Net::SSH::W32Perl, I uninstalled Net-SFTP and re-installed it.   I retried the Net::SFTP test program.   After figuring out that I needed to change the ls() call to   my @files = $sftp->ls('.');   I was able to get it working too!

Now... what did I want it for ... ?   So long ago ... can't ... remember...