So, when I boot the computer and log into root everything comes up fine with the gui (Menu, background, etc), however when I boot the computer and log in as a regular user all I get is a 3" by 3" (what appears to be a graphical) non-resizable terminal in the bottom right corner of the desktop...that's it

I just upgraded from kde 4.3.4-30 to 4.3.4-32 yesterday when I noticed this, but can't say absolutely for sure the update caused the problem because sometimes I log in as root and other times as a regular user, so I could have missed the problem previously.

My system is running Centos 6.7 64 bit on a home built intel based pc. I never had this problem before since Centos 6.0 was installed many moons ago and through the many OS and kde updates. I don't see anything glaring in /var/log/messages; not sure where to look next. I don't mind losing the user because I could remove any important files (Other than having to redo all my gui setup which would be a pain), so would the last resort be to delete and then recreate the user? If so is there a way to copy my gui settings from from root login to the newly created user login so everything is the same?

my guess would be that you lost access to your ~/home file and the default window manager, maybe TWM, is being loaded. Suggest you make sure you have rw access and own permissions to your home folder and all the files within

Does the terminal tail dmesg or do you have a promt?
In case of the latter, hover it with the mouse (should become active) and enter "startkde", see what happens.
In case it's a log output, kill the X11 server (zapping, ie. ctrl+alt+backspace may work and should immediately get you back to the login screen) and log into a "failsafe" session (which should get you a terminal window with a prompt). Enter "startkde" there and see what happens.

Have you tried it with a new user (adduser on cli)?

Thanks for the suggestions....I will give them a try, but I will not be able to get to this until later this week.

SOLVED: Things were so messed up I just deleted the user and recreated it.