Oh, that's awesome; UC Santa Cruz is the one purely developmental program I was considering applying to, although I probably won't in the end.
Boulder does have a good Ed Psych department, but the faculty at Denver is more closely aligned with my research interests.
I hear you about the taking the year off thing. Mine will definitely be very useful-- I'm doing a lot of relevant work and will have a lot more credentials under my belt by the time I'm applying because of the work that I'm doing currently, but I'm really worried that I still won't get in anywhere. I'm from an experimental sort of school that doesn't use grades as an evaluative tool, and while I'll have great recommendations and extracurricular type stuff, not having a GPA is seriously stressing me out. I'm taking the Psych subject test to try to demonstrate that I really do know the subject (yaaay, another GRE to study for!), but I don't know if that will really even make a difference.
It's good to meet you; it's nice to know other people who are going through this same process. : )