my mistake, i left out the closing ')' in the conditional, so instead of
HTML Code:
<?php if (!is_page() {echo get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), '32' );} ?>
it should be
HTML Code:
<?php if (!is_page()) {echo get_avatar( get_the_author_email(), '32' );} ?>
With the closing parentheses missing, everything after that became part of the IF condition. No wonder it didn't work.
Funny thing, I was just talking to Lmilesw this morning and said keeping track of your open/close parentheses is a place you always trip over.