I suppose that if you specify additional starting provinces in a specstart province scenario, you get the special start provinces plus [specified # - 1 (which is covered by the special start)].
Anyway, my trouble was with a corrupt install, corrupt patch install or the maps, because I had some kind of weirdness when unzipping them. Reinstalling the game on a different partition solved all problems, and I'm now a very happy camper.
Edi