Please do not up-vote this answer until the bounty has been paid- if you do.
I want to first give Thanks(!) to those who have helped me and then explain what happened and what not to do and what fixed this issue. So please bare withe me. I am doing this for future users.
Give Thanks: I want to humbly Thank(!) Paul P (here) and Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) from answers.launchpad.net and apologize for being somewhat obtuse. Both helped me to solve this problem. I needed a hero and both stood up to be my hero. I Thank You both with all I have.
In fact, I Thank(!) everyone who chimed in. There was wisdom in all of it. Especially, unkilbeeg, who gave a clue that was invaluable. Of course I cannot forget Cyrus who jumped in right away and was also invaluable.
What Happened: In the fog of things, and with my significant ignorance in all things install/update and so on, I followed pages, opinions, and links and thought I was doing the right thing. In the beginning and at the time, apt-get did not have a package available and so I hovered over launchpad.net because that is where Ubuntu pointed me to.
What I did not realize was what to do with the launchpad.net resource. I installed the base install .gz file expecting an update somewhere. To make a long story short, what I did not realize is that there are .deb files on another page that should have been my focus. If you are trying to update something in Ubuntu using launchpad.net, look for an appropriate .deb file.
Between apt-get and launchpad.net, I ended up with two versions of bash that seriously confused the issue.
Worse yet, there was a proposed GNU fix, that may have been good for some, but broke bash in /bin. Thank God(!) there were two versions. Paul P helped me to fix this with issuing an install command to overwrite the GNU install.
In the end: Both Paul P and Manfred Hampl were on the same track as I bounced between two sites. Unfortunately, I was too obtuse for Paul P and I apologize for that.
What needed to be known was, $PATH was important as unkilbeeg pointed out. The only version of bash that should exist (from my understanding and remember I am obtuse), is the one in /bin and the only install that should be had are the ones you get through apt-get and optionally any deb file from launchpad.net. Both Paul P and Manfred Hampl were pointing out that the /usr/local/bin version of bash should be deleted. So that is what I did. As it turned out, while I thought I was using /usr/bin, because that is what was assigned to my user, I was actually using /local/usr/bin because it was first in my path. Good catch!
Remember this is Ubuntu advice. It may not apply to everyone.
ALWAYS(!) use apt-get first if you can. Secondly, use launchpad.net and look for the right .deb file. Do not do anything else. While GNU resources are valuable, it is best to let Ubuntu create a package for you and simply wait for it. Do not update Ubuntu from other resources unless you really know what you are doing.
Bounty: I wish I could give everyone a part of the bounty or at least divide it between Paul P and Manfred Hampl but that is impossible. I am marking Paul P as the accepted answer and ask him to update his answer for future readers. If he needs information from me, I will gladly give it.
Thanks Again: Again, I Thank(!) everyone who chimed in. Simply chiming in can be far more important than you can ever know. A simple clue can really help someone who is in trouble. The support of a community that cares immense. Thanks Again