Possible to use an already generated bitcoin address? Back in June I was mining just to see what it was all about.  I grabbed bitcoin-qt, generated an address and put that address into the payout info of my account at the pool I was mining in.  I told it to send to my wallet for every .5 coins mined and during the time I let it run I managed to accumulate just over .5

I eventually quit running it, and sort of forgot about it.  I later formatted and re-installed, but I remembered my progress and backed up the folder containing my miner and my wallet.  Now it's Dec and my .5 coin is worth a bit of cash.  However I didn't export or back up my wallet, I just copied the folder.  Since there was no install routine I figured this was enough to preserve my addresses.

I still have the address I told it to send to and I can see the payout in the block chain and I see my address waiting for the payment.  Is there a way to put this address into my wallet or am I out of luck?
You're out of luck if you don't have the wallet, only the address. If anybody could take control of an address they don't have the private key of, the whole system is broken.