Actually, I've found the issue. It's not the code, it's this damn Norton firewall at work! I've had this before, and I think a lot of other people with firewalls such as Norton will have this too.
It has to do with the request by the script for the HTTP_REFERER being blocked by the firewall. Since the options.php script can't find HTTP_REFERER when it reloads, it just attaches the arguments to the end of the base url and doesn't have the refering script such as options-general.php, options-writing.php, options-reading.php, options-discussion.php, and options-misc.php
Refering back to the original script happens around: lines 84-87 of wp-admin/options.php. Is there a workaround? I know there is some way to change the settings in some firewall programs to explicitly allow some URLs to make such requests, but this seems like a lot of work and possibly confusing for newbies.