I agree. Using the pre-ROM Kitchen method works perfectly; that's what I ended up doing.
What I can't figure out is why all these other folks using the Kitchen-based ROMs aren't having trouble. Like I said, I was having problems on a *stock* build with nothing but VC1.6 installed - literally nothing else. Either there's something finnicky about certain phones, or not as many people use VC1.6 as I thought.
Sorry to curse you, buddy - I was really hoping you had a solution!
Follow what 6700Yuma said - use the old method, it really works.