Found the results below rather telling (click on the thumbnail for the full-size graph):

The initial plot of the above graph (what appears to be a horizontal line) is under full load, with the use of the MaxFan utility. The temperature never climbs above 45°C; again, under full load (running various CPU/GPU intensive applications, as well as benchmarking applications). Under idle, it drops to 31°C. At approximately the 75% mark in the graph, the MaxFan utility was turned off, and the machine was left idle. The temperature again returned to the familiar sawtooth pattern. Quite a difference from the original temperature profile posted.
In the format from above in the initial post :
Ambient : 18-19°C
Idle : 31-32°C
Load : 44-45°C
The MaxFan utility makes quite a difference. Have been using it for a little over a month and a half with nary a problem.