Updated all, rebooted, no benefit, Abiword still fails to launch. Tried all variations of Xvesa, xorg-vesa, xorg-nv with/out graphics module.
Installed dCore-jessie on same old hardware, Abiword launches fine, only issue spastic Abiword cursor - minor.
Abiword on dCore-wily still not sure, think it's a different version (Jessie 3.0.0 vs 3.1 or something). Also xorg-nv probably set up different in Jessie.
Interesting that LibreOffice works well, as does all other software tested, just not Abiword, having said that it always seemed finicky.
Terminal output from dCore-jessie for comparison to dCore-wily posted above:
tc@box:/mnt/sda2/tce$ abiword
(process:4912): Gtk-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
(abiword:4912): Clutter-WARNING **: Locale not supported by C library.
Using the fallback 'C' locale.
libEGL warning: DRI2: failed to authenticate
libEGL warning: DRI2: failed to open swrast (search paths /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri:${ORIGIN}/dri:/usr/lib/dri)
(abiword:4912): Clutter-CRITICAL **: Unable to initialize Clutter: Failed to connected to any renderer due to constraints
** (abiword:4912): WARNING **: clutter failed -3, get a life.
(abiword:4912): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_value_copy: assertion 'g_value_type_compatible (G_VALUE_TYPE (src_value), G_VALUE_TYPE (dest_value))' failed
(abiword:4912): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: g_object_get_valist: object class 'GtkSettings' has no property named 'gtk-cursor-blink'