solved my own problem. first off after all my ranting I had the profile provider improperly defined it needs to be

<profile enabled="true" defaultProvider="YafProfileProvider" inherits="YAF.Classes.Utils.YafUserProfile">
<providers>
<clear/>
<add connectionStringName="yafnet" applicationName="myapp" name="YafProfileProvider" type="YAF.Providers.Profile.YafProfileProvider"/>
</providers>
<properties>
<add name="Theme" allowAnonymous="false" defaultValue="Blue"/>
</properties>
</profile>

Secondly I had "Registered" as start and my application uses "Private Individual" as the initial role, so I changed it.

Now it appears to be working.

If I did not have a start role I could have used "Registered" so if anyone else....