Got my answer - well at least the best I'm going to get.
First of all I need to give props to Wes, the CEO of P202. I got a hold of him via email and he was nothing but helpful. He tested my setup, had me upload some test files (ioncube version) and we went back and forth a few times with questions and answers. It's the best support I've ever gotten...for a free program to boot.
Unfortunately he was unable to figure out exactly what the problem was. I also was in touch with asmallorange, which verified my server settings and offered to change them to get the program working.
Very impressed with fast support from both. Sucks that ASO is doing something weird with their hosting environment, but I'll just toss a few bucks for a shared host and use that for P202.