I'm going to leave my previous responses for posterity and further troubleshooting for other users. I've flashed 5 or so phones in my time, and I wondered why the instructions were different for this phone versus others.
- My SD card was a super old, 4GB, perpetually used and abused piece of hardware. It needed replaced. I went out and bought a new one tonight.
- Instead of just formatting /cache and using "wipe data/factory reset" like the instructions say, I went in and did like I have always done with every other phone and formatted /system, /data, /cache, /boot in "mounts and storage", and used the "wipe data/factory reset" options.
After that, this went off without a hitch. I'll be using this as my daily driver until the next update comes along, then i'll use that.
Thanks to sandix for the awesome ROM. You Rock