Been a little busy lately... so here's the deal to provide closure on all that happened...
The domain got renewed by its original owner, from what I can tell. The "creation" date stayed the same, and the domain now resolves to the original parked page (I remember the photo from when I first tried to investigate it).
Oddly enough, contact details to include a phone number (a 416 number and an Ottawa mailing address; an atypical combination) are present, despite the WHOIS being set to private before. I'm planning to give the owner a call next week or maybe even tomorrow if things aren't too busy for me.
MSN, I do appreciate the offer to help. I will say that I purposefully neglected your first PM, as I was hesitant to disclose what the name was, when it is quite possible that someone on here could be the owner, and the fact that I gave an idea as to how much I was willing to pay could have put me in a very weak position, should that circumstance have arisen.
The second PM I read earlier today and figured I'd just explain it all here.
Now, time to make the phone ring and hope I can land myself the name.