Always starts up when cold.
engine turns over sometimes w/ starter dragging
while othertimes, engine turns over very quickly
Engine cranks to life w/in 3-4 secs in all cases.
idles a bit rough for the first 10-15 secs.
idles smoothy thereafter w/out any problems.
runs perfectly.

Once it's warmed, and I go somewhere local, and then shut her off while I go into a 7-11 and buy a newspaper, I get back into the car:

starter spins about 1/3 as fast to crank the motor
motor feels like its dragging about
won't fire up, regardless of whether I have the gas pedal pushed to the floorboard, modulated, or left untouched.
turn the key off, wait a minute, try again - same conditions as above
turn key off, wait some more, try again - same thing
do this 10-15 times, same thing
do this once more, starter spools up quickly, engine fires right up.

It's as if I can tell whether I'll be driving the car home or not based on how I hear the starter spin.

I never had this problem until I had the starter rebuilt. But for the life of me, I can't understand how a starter could cause the engine to not fire up. My gut feeling tells mes I could be having a defective ignition coil.

Can anyone shed some light to this and offer me a solution?
I would love to remedy this before next weekend - I want to drive my baby! TIA