> Also a countertop swivel chair physicist, my understanding is that Higgs bosons are recruited as virtual particles all the time to bestow other particles their mass.

Physicist here: nope. The coupling between the Higgs field and other particle fields is what creates the phenomona of mass. The Higgs particle is just an excitation of that field.

Virtual particles aren't "real" in the same way that the first order Taylor series of sin(x) being x doesn't max x a real sinusoidal wave. All it does is let you make your calculations "close enough" for your accepted definition of "close enough."