Okay, looks like I found my problem. A friend who owns a Sony camcorder brought it to work yesterday along with his NP-F960 battery, and I brought in my 722 and NP-F970 battery.
Plugged my NP-F970 into the camcorder and voila, it slid right onto the contacts, clicking into place, and the unit powered right up, no problem. Grabbed his NP-F960 and slid it onto the 722 and "click"...full contact with the 722's terminals, covering them completely as they should, with the release button fully up and...lo & behold, the 722 powered right up.
I took both batteries and placed them side by side, contacts up, and noticed the wells on one looked deeper than the other. Grabbed a toothpick and placed it (gently) into the contact wells of each battery, and what did I find? The 960 wells are 4/16" deep, the 970 wells are 3/16" deep, therefore the lack of full contact on the 722 with the NP-F970. How about that?
So, at this point I am looking to cut my losses as I'm past the 7-day return period so I ask my pal if he'd be up for a battery trade and he was. He gets a higher-capacity Sony battery for his camcorder and I get a Sony battery that while not as high in capacity, gives me peace of mind and a working battery, so we both win.
I just wonder if this is a known problem on all NP-F970's? I was tempted to push the wells in to see if they'd go deeper but didn't want to risk puncturing the well bottom.
Anyway, just wanted to share this for the record in case anyone else has the same, or a similar, problem.
Keith