Backing up and restoring replicated databases in SQL 2000 can be a real headache. We do this once a month and still occasionally come up with issues. Sometimes sp_removedbreplication simply doesn't work, and I have had to drop replication for the entire server and rebuild it (ie turn off publishing and distribution).
Frank, you seem to be asking a different question (one about stored procedure) than the first one in this series, so it might be better if you submitted it as a new question instead of trying to piggyback. It will help if you can post the results of the removedbreplication proc, as well as the error you receive when trying to drop the stored procedures.
