Well the joy of the success in splitting the stereo audio pair in 2 separate cards was short lived…
SoftSqueeze, since it runs in Java can’t access alsa virtual devices. Only sound cards.
Same goes for squeezeslave. It can only access the OSS device /dev/dsp
I’ve tries all I can think of to fake things to fool these applications, but I just don’t know enough about the linux sound system to pull it off (if there even is a way to do it)

So I just ordered 2 small USB sound cards for $4 plus $7 in S/H (what a rip off). Each can do 1 stereo pair.
Hopefully with these, I can run 3 zones (even though stereo is overkill) and I can set up this laptop to serve audio, and put this whole thing to rest.