rewrite.  When called from SIInsertDataEntries, SICleanupQueue releases
the write lock if it has to issue a kill() to signal some laggard backend.
That still seems like a good idea --- but it's possible that by the time
we get the lock back, there are no longer enough free message slots to
satisfy SIInsertDataEntries' requirement.  Must recheck, and repeat the
whole SICleanupQueue process if not.  Noted while reading code.