Imac won't recognize cameras - please help

I have an early 2008 Imac (24", 3.06GHz, 4GB RAM, 750GB Hard Drive, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 512MB).

I've had snow leopard on the mac for over 2 years, Iphoto and Aperture work as designed, cameras attached (ipod, Iphone, Nikon D90, Canon point and shoot) all recognize and allowed me to select pictures for import.
Iphoto 9, Aperture 3.x and snow leopard.

I upgraded just after launch to Mountain Lion (on the list of eligible devices) with the same Iphoto 9 and Aperture 3.x, however, now iphoto and Aperture will not recognize any camera and allow me to select photos for import from any of these sources (pulling the card or hooking the camera up directly). The D90 SD card will show in finder if I plug it into my external card reader and the i devices will show up in itunes (so the computer sees them). None of them appear in Image capture.

I would appreciate any advice anyone has to get these cameras working the right way in iphoto and aperture (I almost bought the new Iphoto, but if the cameras don't show in image capture and aperture, I doubt the would in the new iphoto).

It appears to be an issue where mountain lion doesn't recognize cameras or their SD cards through Iphoto, aperture or image capture.

I've restarted, formatted the SD cards on the cameras, plugged in through a USB dock and direct to the machine, and tried different cables to no effect.

Thank you!

Tried more stuff:

Cleared Pram, unplugged for over a minute to clear memory, deleted image capture preference files in library.
Plugged a camera into my other imac (same early 2008, but the 2.8 24" standard version) with the same results.

Has anyone upgraded from snow leopard and iphoto/aperture and image capture recognize your cameras and let you pick pictures to download from them?

yes, I set the automatic open in both iphoto 9 and aperture - it will open the program when the camera is connected, however, the camera/idevice will not show up as a device. It just opens the program.

When others plug a camera/iphone into iphoto 9 or aperture 3 on Mountain lion, does it show up as a device?

I am going to do a fresh re-install of mountain lion this week to see if the Imac will recognize any devices in image capture, aperture and iphoto 09.

I can plug any of the same devices into my rev A macbook air running Snow leopard and it works exactly as you would expect, so this was definitely introduced with the mountain lion upgrade.

Last post - no luck for anyone else encountering this issue without a reinstall - I had it on two iMac from early 2008 both upgraded from snow leopard.
I reinstalled Mountain Lion from scratch on the 24" iMac and now the devices appear in image capture. Looks like something gets corrupted in the upgrade which doesn't allow iphoto, aperture or image capture to recognize devices (iphone, cameras, etc).

A full clean install works.