We simply cannot seem to upgrade our current SharePoint 2007 MOSS SP1 server to SP2...in refuses to get past our search crawler database during the configuration wizard no matter what we do. An option we are exploring is to build a new SharePoint 2007 environment already at SP2 (with cumulative updates as well, might as well get the whole ball of wax!) and then attach our content database (currently attached to the SP1 server) to that...is this an acceptable option?

You would get a patch mismatch error. What is the error that you get while upgrade? The logs should tell you why the upgrade is failing. Could you post the message here? Another option would be to delete the SSP ( if you dont use audiences and my sites extensively) and also have no issues rebuilding your search index.

OOOOOOOOOOHHHH boy, you really want to know? Well, somehow our search crawler database is a mess. Using the actual one currently running, we get an error in the upgrade.log telling us it is a pre-production version. We have tried various ways to produce a replacement for this database during upgrade, most of these have reported that the crawler database is now 'too new' and it fails again. Unfortunately mysites IS used extensively on this server, so deletion of the SSP is really not an option. We are really getting desperate here, we have to upgrade to prepare to migrate to SP 2010, but simply can't get this thing to go to SP2...

Vik Srini, We have a new idea : Create a new environment (this time 64 bit, but still at SP1 level) and attach just our content database to that. Then run the SP2 upgrade on the new environment. We may need a little cooperation (Nintex Workflow may need to issue us a temp license for the new environment), but if it works we can kill two birds with one stone: get to SP2 and upgrade to 64 bit. Does this sound like a good plan?

If you can do that, then it would be better since then you have a fresh vanilla install of SharePoint and thereby you may be eliminating any corruption issues. Also, make sure you apply the WSS 2.0 Servcie pack 2 before you apply the MOSS Service pack 2. All the best. Let me know how it goes.