ApplianceJunk, Thanks for the link to your topic.
My pleasure...
I'm still trying to learn just why it happened.
The same spaces show up on my test site I run on a local server, yet the registration verification image shows up on the test site just fine.
Seems to me something changed on the server side over night, but when I contacted my host they said no changes had been made.
I may play around with a fresh install of 2.0.1 and watch for the extra spaces to show up as I install mods I use, just for the fun of it.
Edited to add: I realise too regardless of if any changes took place on the server side the space should not be there and I don't believe any changes on the server side caused the spaces.
Also note, it seemed the edit to the index.template.php took care of the registration verification image problem right away. I would edit that one first just to see and then repair the other files.