OK, I found this post Local rasa x installation fails from @lmb where she backed her rasa-x version down to 0.35.0. In my venv, all I did was follow what lmb posted which as to run: pip install rasa-x==0.35.0 --extra-index-url https://pypi.rasa.com/simple then I did: rasa x and it came up. Like many of you, I had tried the above install procedure but I suppose you really have to go back further that 0.40.0. I just looked at the rasa-x change long and might try to go up to 0.39.3 just to see where if 0.40.0 was the start of where things broke, at least of some of us.
Thanks a bunch @lmb !!!