Kevin
Couple of points. The orientation things is nothing to do with the eyepieces, it should be the same for all of them.
Secondly, M42 (Orion Nebula) should be easily visible even with light pollution. I have seen it clearly with naked eye in suburban Melbourne.
What finder scope are you using? And has it been correctly aligned?
With the collimation beyond the star test, how else are you testing it? Do you have any collimation gear? If you don't, here is an aticle on "no tools" collimation that should work.
http://www.garyseronik.com/?q=node/238 It does require that you are able to track a star, so reasonable polar aligning and a motor on the RA axis would help.
Cheers
Malcolm