Ah, I see your problem now. Use the full, 6-character hexcodes for the IE gradient styles:
Code:
startColorstr='#666666', endColorstr='#333333'
The shorthand versions don't work here; they're being re-interpreted by IE as #000666 and #000333.
That is why I do not use shortcut versions. Check out the attachment which was written many moons ago but works fine today for IE. Feel free to make fun at some of my styling too if you like