Okay, once I changed the sub-select 'o' to ec_orders I got a new error both in the webpage and through psql
NOTICE: Adding missing FROM-clause entry in subquery for table "ec_orders"
[31/Dec/2001:11:37:18][31963.12299][-conn4-] Error: Ns_PgExec: result status: 7 message: ERROR: ORDER BY on a UNION/INTERSECT/EXCEPT result must be on one of the result columns
So I decided I didn't really need the order-by at this time, so I removed the final order by, and the query works again.
So the big question is 'Is this a bug in pg?'. Obviously the new version breaks previously good code. Or did I once again fail to do some minor very important tweak?
Oh and 'Happy New Year!!' :)