I checked the byte count of my hard drive. It was 17,606,107,136. Then I added one restore point and the new byte count was 17,662,541,824 which when after subtracting the original byte count, showed that it added 56,434,688 bytes added for one restore point. I then ran CCCleaner, the latest version, with normal file deletion and empty recycle bin checked, and it said it removed .18 MB. The actual new byte count was 17,606,189,056 which indicates to me that it actually removed 56,352,768 bytes which is virtually all of the new restore point.
CCCleaner is erasing my restore points and not just hiding them as some seem to have asserted. Now the question is, what can I do about it other than just not use CCCleaner? I repeat that it does not exhibit this behavior on my Gateway laptop or my wife's Compaq desktop, only on my Dell Dimension 8400 with Windows XP, SP3 with all updates installed. I decided to do another test and came back and edited this posting.
In a method similar to what Wyo did, I created another restore point, saved it, tested it. I then manually emptied the recycle bin and lost the restore point. The same identical thing happened when I used CCCleaner with Empty Recycle Bin checked. I then, instead of uninstalling and reinstalling CCCleaner as Wyo did, tried simply unchecking Empty Recycle Bin in that program. I then set up another restore point, emptied the recycle bin directly and still had the restore point (previously this had also erased the restore point). I then went to CCCleaner and rechecked Empty Recycle Bin and then ran CCCleaner and the new restore point was still there. It would appear that something is taking place during the updates of CCCleaner that starts deletion of the restore points both with normal trash emptying and with using CCCleaner and letting it empty the trash. Simply unchecking that box, even though I rechecked it in the next step, stopped the loss of the restore points that I had created for the test. It was always keeping one restore point even when losing the others. I think this gives new direction to the search for what is causing the problem.