Thanks! Which Login Redirect plugin are you using? I found a ton on WordPress.org. 
sorry – had a killer sinus infection last week or I’d have answered your question sooner!
I’d actually started with the one developed by Brajesh Singh (man, i hope i spelled that right!) – had trouble with it, so i also tried the free plugin by Andrew Billitts at WPMUDEV. of course, stupid me didn’t read the fine print – that one isn’t a Buddypress plugin *facepalm*
long story short, i tinkered around with those, and realized that the BP Disable Activation plugin didn’t like what i was doing. for some reason about half the new registrants have issues when email activation is required, so i stripped out what i really needed from the three plugins and added it to my functions.php file. i deactivated the start page from the Welcome Pack in the admin panel, customized my registration page a wee bit, and all is moving along swimmingly…
good thing that was long story short, i guess… 
you guys do a great job with these things. thanks a lot!
@movefearlessly: i have the same issue now. hotmail users do not get activation email nomore. gmail users do. something is broken i think. can you explain how to fix this. even with deleted plugs it wont work no more. how to fix the original activation method of wordpress.