Sorry--I forgot to ever repost my solution. It was the flex cable for me (and probably just about everyone in this thread). Apparently they're pretty fucxing delicate.
(this one for my model: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Apple-922-9060-13-MacBook-Pro-Unibody-Optical-Drive-Flex-Cable-821-0889-A-/280890775297?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4166651701)
I went ahead and took my computer to the apple store. I was sure they weren't going to fix it, though I was hoping they might have a spare cable they could test to rule out LB failure (again).
I put the original optical drive back in (unrecognized in sys profiler) and told the techs I had tested the drive in another computer and that I thought I might have a malfunctioning SATA port. They looked at me sideways and told me my warranty was suposed to be void if I'd cracked the shell, but took the computer anyway. They gave me/the machine the standard rundown of patronizing tests, but when it all showed up like I'd said, they just shipped it off and fixed it for free (awesome and unexpected). You'll hear no complaints from me about apple customer service
When the work order came back, the only thing replaced was the flex cable. I swapped the optical drive back out for the SSD again (painstakingly careful with the cable this time) and everything has been smooth since
Short version: You may get lucky at the apple store, but if not I'd go ahead and spring for the new cable.