Well, after spending some time under the hood; My positive battery cable was melted at the terminal by the battery post; I checked the resistance and found it had some slight resistance, around 3/4 of an ohm, which I can only imagine was a minor part of the problem.
I checked the voltage output, and as described after doing a search on the boards, found 12.60 volts at the terminals.
I turned the lights on for one minute and started the car, and watched the voltage hit 14.39 volts, and then after tapping the throttle drop to 12.3 volts and hover around there. The battery light flickers on and off, and any time the gas pedal is tapped, the light comes on.
I have the top of the line motorcraft series battery installed in the roughly 3 years ago by a budy who used to work at a ford dealership, he got it for his cost, and the battery tested good. I worked for a autoparts place years back, and the chain here used a really good computerized tester.
One thing to consider if that the vehicle's battery is not fully charged, it WILL kill an replacement alternator. Ask me, I know after dealing with a reman unit for my explorer.
I went to see on a slim chance at to of the u pull it yards here to see if I might find a good alternator, as they sometimes yank the drivetran and set them out on a row incase someone needs a complete engine, ready to go.
Only found one 2.5, but the alternator was siezed.
The rest were 4 cylinder cars.
It rained all day Sunday, so I wasn't able to remove my unit for testing.
I checked around for a 100% new unit, and holy hell sticker shock. I am used to the 70's and early 80's ford units being maybe $50 for a reman alternator. Not $200!
On the brightside though, I finally did my plug wires with a set of accel wires given to me, and found my waterpump belt is overdue for replacement.
GOing to pull the unit out tonight and get a new piece, and thans to the info here, I am going to only cuss and scream half of what I might normally do.