i think i'm having the same issue as everyone else - i found 2 workarounds in maya to save the trouble of having to change drivers every time you want to do something other than model... this is for my geforce4 ti4200...

1) instead of spacebarring to get to persp, use the hotkey layouts on the left side, in the toolbox. might have to enable that if you have it turned off though...display > ui elements > toolbox

2) if you insist on spacebarring, spacebar to the grey screen, make sure your object is deselected (just l-click once or whatever), then rclick->select all. it'll frame and select your object and it'll be visible again.

both of these work on my machine, would someone else like to try them on their machine and see if it seems like a good workaround or is it just a fluke for me