Jane,
Im just catching up on my mail, and I have run across
the same problems as you with r.profile. I had to
abandon that program because of its unproditablility
to produce a line in a continuous format.
My solution was to use write the ascii vector
format for a line (so I got the precise points) and
then used v.in.ascii. From that point I converted it
to a raster and zoomed in on the line. Apply the
new raster as a mask, and use r.stats to get the
points in a x, y, z format.
I found this to be more reliable, since r.profile only
gives out the z. Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Kym M. Lenkus
GIS Manger
DAVIDSON LABORATORY