I had the same needs and was pleased to see that civicrm was now ported to WordPress:
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC42/WordPress+Installation+Guide+for+CiviCRM+4.2
I had been using this in drupal for the same needs.
I am seeing the same issue after upgrading to 3.2. If I reset settings to default they briefly show before disappearing again.
