Mail Smart Folders lost on every restart

This is a last-ditch effort to resolve an issue that I've long given up on resolving: My smart folders in mail disappear every time I restart the computer. It is limited to my user account. I honestly cannot remember what I've tried to fix it, as I've had this problem since one of the early point releases of Leopard, and have tried many many things.
Has anyone had this before? Any ideas of how to fix?
Thanks.

Greetings,
Maybe your Mail preferences file is corrupted. Try this:
1. Quit Mail.
2. Go to Home/Library/Preferences and remove the com.apple.mail.plist file.
3. Restart Mail and setup your account(s) again, then setup your Smart Folders again.
4. Quit and restart Mail again to see if your preferences stick. If so, delete the old com.apple.mai.plist file that you previously removed.

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