You said "EQ2 doesn't really dig running more than one instance of the game on a PC"
I run EQ2 dual boxing on two of my computers. This 3rd party applications helps throttle the CPU/FPS of the background directx app
http://www.lavishsoft.com/wineq2/
Even without this 3rd party app I still can run another EQ2, I just make sure I turn the graphics basically all off on the 'dual' boxed toon.
Both my computers are AMD 64x dual core 3800+ w/ 2gig 800mhz RAM and 7600GT cards. Not all that beefy imho
Bob