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I went out today for the first time in a week, and discovered a new problem.
For about five minutes before leaving the mooring, I warmed the engine with the throttle in the "disengaged" position. When I clicked the throtle back in to the "shift and go" position, it wouldn't budge out of neutral. After playing with the controls for several minutes, I was finally able to gently force the throttle ahead, but the gears did not engage, and I was worried that I might have stripped something in the throttle linkage.
Thankfully, after several more minutes of mostly random (I like to call it intuitive) monkeyng, I finally got the gears to engage, and I had no problems for the rest of the day.
My question for the cognoscenti is this: What's the likely culprit here? The shiifter or *gulp* the lower unit?

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I was having a similar issue with my 90 evinrude, it was very hard to shift into gear etc. What was going on was the shift rod needed greasing, it was all covered in salt and grime where it goes into the lower unit. the fix for my motor was: pull lower unit, clean and grease shift rod(need new gasket and o ring when doing this) and I was good. note: replace impeller while your down there.
Nauset inlet is one of my favoite places on the Cape.
Good luck

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I had a shifting problem with my old Mercury one time and finally the culprit came to be as I was loading the boat on the trailer. As my approach to the trailer on a windy day, I had to put it in reverse and my shift cable broke, but not the throttle cable. How old are your cables are there any cracks in them? You may want to disconnect them from the engine and try shifting them unconnected to the engine that will illuminate cables and box problems.

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Good call, and thanks. I dropped the lower unit yesterday, and the shift rod was, as you suggested, badly in need of cleaning and fresh lubrication. The shifter works perfectly now and, yes, I did redo the water pump while I was at it.
Thanks again for the useful post.