As I continue to troubleshoot, one thing comes to mind from the initial upgrade from 4.8.x to 4.94.
When I unzipped the upgrade package into place, I went edited the config.release file with the database connect string info from the current web.config file. Then I renamed the web.config to web.config.4.8 and renamed the release.config to web.config.  Then I started the IIS site again, went to the portal and the upgrade proceeded normally without any errors.

But I found that when I tried to log into the portal my admin password (well all passwords) would not work.

I then switched back to the original web.config file and was able to log in without issue.  I did a side by side comparison of the two config files and did not see any real differences except for the "machineKey" so I just carried on from there.The site seemed to be working fine till a few days later I tried to add a new portal and found the error report in this thread.

Just wondering if this could be the source of the portal creation problem?

btw, I assume there is either an issue with portal template (having no pages included) or a stored procedure called during portal creation.

if possible, I'd suggest rollign back to 4.8 and perform upgrade again.

Just to close off this discussion.

I was never able to get the problems with 4.9 resolved.

BUT, I was able to get the 4.9 to 5.2 upgrade to finally work by reinstalling the 5.2 upgrade and only picking the core modules.  Then the upgrade process went as expected and I was able to add in the additional modules after logging back into the upgraded site.

I am very please with version 5 and would love to upgrade my other DNN portals but I am very nervous to do so given the troubles I had with this upgrade.  But that being said, I am sure that I will be upgrading them all in the near future, following the 3 rules of upgrading 1)back up , 2)back up,  3)back up.