I forgot to mention that I do not use MISO at all - only MOSI (the peer {SSP is used for general purpose data transfer in this application} that wants to transmit, takes the master role. there is some synchronization there)...! The IO pin physically connected to the SPI bus is configured as GPIO - not MISO...
Oh, this was a forum bug. My reply ended up in a new thread...! sorry.
See http://www.keil.com/forum/docs/thread16606.asp