Have you ever made changes to your MOSS enviornment and attempted to make a change in the Central Administration tool afterwards, and have an error page pop up telling you that it was unable to make the change because it was being currently being updated by Domainusername (probably your own!)? I ran into this a few times and found a solution. If you open the C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersApplication DataMicrosoftSharePointConfig there will be a folder with sort of a GUID name. I cut that folder out and pasted it on my desktop (to ensure nothing was needed) and ran the process again, and BAM! it worked! It appears to just contain XML files that keep track of the changes you make that (possibly) use the OWSTIMER. When one of those services gets choked up or doesn't complete, it kinda "locks you out" of making other changes.
Hope this helps!
Rodney
Rodney