Cheers fellas, my question is now, does my wallet.dat backup become invalid after each occurrence in which my node is used?

OK, turns out my active wallet.dat file was from an old backup, before the transaction(s) in question took place (I think).
A restore of the full ...\appdata\... folder from a recent version has fixed my woes.
Thanks for the rapid help from dev et al, turns out I'm stupid, maybe something can be learned from this (if nothing else keep your backups up to date & organized ).

Possibly a pebkac issue, I'll keep everyone posted...

PM sent

All I know is I'm down ~1kXC thanks to running an "autonode". Slack chat could be made easier to access also perhaps 

Thanks, I may well take up your kind offer. Would really like some 'official' word on how the hell this kind of thing can happen. Dan, I'm talking to you.

Trying what's been kindly suggested...I get the feeling I'm (XC) fucked.
Will refrain from further comment until all avenues have been tried.

Thanks for the input so far guys, repairwallet hasn't made any difference.
"wallet check passed" : true

 Whoever asked how I just noticed this, the amount has only just recently disappeared off my wallet balance, with no action taken by me
See all those 'receipts' of 900ish in my screenshot, they made no difference to my wallet balance either.

This happened when a load of ppl, including atcsecure were in IRC testing various functions, mainly xchat across platforms. I was running as a node to assist this. Whoever asked how I just noticed this, the amount has only just recently disappeared off my wallet balance, with no action taken by me, as you can see below there were all kinds of fruity weird transactions flying around:
http://i.imgur.com/zfswhaH.png
I assumed this was part of the 'normal' workings of a node, now it appears I am out of pocket big time. Maybe I've done something stupid, maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I'm totally baffled and as I'm sure you can imagine my confidence in XC has been dented big time.

Hey, see below for more details, I believe this may be something to do with acting as a node, however at the time this amount wasn't deducted from my overall balance or anything, recently, seemingly randomly, it is now deducted from my wallet balance.

http://i.imgur.com/DYgniaA.png

I can't join your cosy little chat thing as I don't hold 1000XC as my wallet has decided to remove almost 1K from my balance, can anyone please explain this?
http://i.imgur.com/BrIkrXf.png

+1

People following the development of the XC project even casually should be aware of these facts.

This was part of a chat I was having with Dan about the long term macro scale implications of the pure decentralized, secure p2p mesh network that the XC platform would offer. Dan is clearly up to speed on emerging mobile technologies that are bringing closer a certain 'utopia' state of a secure, decentralized, p2p mesh network based on future mobile device LTE technology.
Consider the emerging role tech is playing in major world events (twitter reports etc); consider the recent unrest in Hong Kong, with the centralized cell networks in full control of the powers that be, essentially in full control of all citizen communication.  Imagine those thousands of people gathered and able to communicate freely and securely, using an ad-hoc mobile device LTE based mesh network.
Anyone expecting Dan to code this overnight is insane, but the fact that the devs are clued up and forward thinking gives confidence.

Keep testing guys, I'm enjoying the rewards of running a node  

Intelligent people do have doubts of course. I agree with this:

Read back, you're missing the point.

Thank you URSAY, you legend  
Would be good to have something like this incorporated into the xc-official.com site.

I thought it more appropriate to post on this forum rather than the XCTalk due to the higher level of activity here. Really can't understand what point TheGer is trying to make here, I'm just trying to make positive suggestions.

My point exactly.