I agree with fishdoc. I've seen it happen many, many times with peoples tanks. RTN can spread very quickly through a tank. With all the advances we have made in the hobby, you don't see it as much as you did in the past. So people experience it as often.
A lot of people have the false sense that SPS, specifically acroporids, are pretty easy to care for as long as you have the tank setup a certain way. And for the most part they are. Still, acroporids are a very fickle coral that can turn south very quickly.
One of the biggest hurdles is that many people do not post about their failures when keeping SPS. So many times it is not until someone makes a big post like kip has done, that all these people who otherwise would have been silent start to open up about some of the real problems that they are having. I've tried to be very honest on the boards about the failures that I have had with my tank (and I've had a bunch) for that very reason. Even someone who is seen as a good reef keeper has problems and makes mistakes. IMO it's being able to learn from the problems that others have that make this forum such a great resource.
Kip, I wish you luck with getting things on track. As I've said, I've been there before, it's very disheartening but almost always the tank comes out better in the end. Sometimes getting there sucks though.