After my earlier post I tested with a fresh profile. The behavior is not the same as with my existing profile. With or without the useInstance check box enabled, kate will flash and then remain in the background. That does not happen with my existing profile. The same instance always get used but I admit I'm not knowledgeable about using sessions so the problem might be me.
Possibly my patch needs an if-then test against the useInstance or --use parameter.
Well, let's hold the favorite beverages. Now that I have my senses back after my initial shock and happiness, I am realizing that certain usage patterns still fail to force kate to grab the focus.
With my existing profile, when I launch kate for the first instance through selecting a document in konqueror, then thereafter kate raises and grabs focus. And that was pretty much the extent of my previous testing.
Now I discover when I open kate from my task bar icon, which has the --use parameter, or the mini cli (Alt-F2), and kate is configured with useInstance=true, and then open a document from konqueror into kate, kate will not raise forward or grab focus.
Even drag-and-drop will not force kate forward with the focus.
So seems my solution works great but only when used in a specific manner. The nominal consolation is that is still better than what I had previously.
Darrell