Re: fo:instream-foreign-object - fo:table height overf

<fo:table-row height="9.0in">

                      <fo:block>
                         <fo:instream-foreign-object width="11.5in" height="9in">

The problem is that the object is embedded within a line, and you
get some space (the half-leading) added to the line height. This can
be avoided by setting line-height="0" on the block, there are some
other ways as well. You may still run into round-off problems, if so
try using height="9.0in + 0.1pt" (yes this should work) on the table
row.

I am assuming the resolution of the processor is 72 dpi, so I'm
scaling my graphics into that space.

SVG is vector graphics, and FOP tries to avoid rasterizing it if
the target format allows vector graphics, like PDF does. In this case,
image resolution is irrelevant.