Why won't monitor clalibration stay on after reboot?

If I go into the display profiles folder and delete the one auto created, named VE228-00000469-0000-22FA-0000-00001A48BE81, it just creates a new one with bad settings.

The OS isn't creating that one. In the old days, all (better) monitors came with a floppy disk, or CD that had the vendor supplied profile on it. It was a big waste of money to produce these things. People who actually used them lost the disks. Or, in most cases, they didn't use them at all.

At least five years ago (I think more like 10), monitor manufacturers started putting the supplied profile on a chip in the monitor itself. This is now true of any display, whether it's a stand alone monitor, or a built in unit such as an iMac, laptop (any brand), etc.

Both the Windows and Mac OS automatically see and copy this default profile from the monitor to the hard drive. That's what the file in the /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/ folder is. No matter how many times you delete it, the OS will copy it from the monitor again.

As far as the issue itself, that is somewhat common with Mountain Lion, though I haven't seen it with Snow Leopard.

The file that holds that information is in your user Library folder. From the desktop, hold down the Option key and choose Go > Library. Open the Preferences folder and put the following file in the trash:

com.apple.systempreferences.plist

Restart, or log out and log back in. Select your monitor profile again. Hopefully, this time it will stick. There are other settings that will go back to the defaults when you remove this file. You'll have to wade through the System Preferences and see what needs to be put back where you had it.

That's weird. If the OS knows what the correct profile is when you enter the Displays settings, why can't it choose the right one to start with?

Do you have any startup items that control color management? Such as a display calibrator that adds a menu bar tool?

Open the System Preferences and click on the Accounts icon. Select your account, and at the right, click the Login Items button. Anything there would obviously belong to an X-Rite, Spyder, or other calibrator (assuming you use one)?

Any other ideas?

I haven't seen this happen in Snow Leopard in a long time. Couple other things you could try.

1) Run a Repair Permissions with Disk Utility. There may be a problem with the Profiles folder. It's sometimes surprising what Repair Permissions will fix.

2) Download and install the 10.6.8 Combo update. It will replace a lot of system files with fresh copies. It often works to fix a lot of small issues without having to reinstall the entire OS.

Yes, apply the update anyway.

A simple test. Create a new test account and login to that. Set your monitor profile. Restart a couple of times into the new account. Does it stick, or does that one have the same problem? I'm guessing it will be fine, which would point directly to an issue with your main account.

I thought logging out was pretty much the same as a reboot. Should try again only reboot instead?

Technically, it should have the same effect, but try rebooting just to be sure of any possible difference. If that doesn't help, then something in the system is broke that the Combo updater didn't repair. At that point, a reinstall of the OS is in order. Especially when a new account does the same thing.

I should be able to do the one that saves all apps and user settings, since this appears to be a system level thing, correct?

Yes. As always, make a full backup first in case anything goes wrong. Better to have a way to at least get back to the current point than none at all.