Ok so that's interesting. I tried switching to another simulator as well (hadn't tried that yet)...
While waiting for "Preparing iPhone Simulator for Previews [spinner]"...
Chose a different simulator (iPhone 12 Pro Max in this case, hadn't used that one before)
Results:
The "Preparing iPhone Simulator for Previews [spinner]"... keeps right on going... BUT...
After about 20-30 seconds, I have a working SwiftUI preview again!
UNFORTUNATELY... the "Preparing iPhone Simulator for Previews [spinner]"... is STILL spinning.
It seems as if there's a hung process that just won't refuse to give up the ghost on the borked simulator.
After the above, I tried quitting both Xcode and iOS Simulator and restarting. That seems to have stopped the wayward message/spinner problem, but now I'm afraid to go back to the borked simulator (iPhone 12 Pro) – worried it might "spread" or get even more sticky. :(