Well....it looks like changing the option from THICK to THIN did it. In fact, unlike before, where I had killed all the services and run it as THICK, I left all services as-is, with the exception of antivirus and the APC battery backup software (service). Everything I've read, everyone I've talked to, has said that killing the services is the silver bullet but this seems to have actually been what was needed.
So, at 4:44 AM, when I checked in on my patient, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the P2V had completed successfully. It still leaves me wondering if the issue isn't free drive space related as it always died during the reconfiguration process. Morbid curiosity has me wondering.
Regardless, that was the proverbial thorn in my side. And it is no mas. 