Thanks, YiKai --
It will be awhile before I have a chance to test this, but I'm pretty sure you've put me on the right track. One final point you might be able to clarify: There seems to be absolutely no place in simpleBLEPeripheral or it's supporting code where software touches P0INP (my PxINP) directly. Does hardware change it when P0SEL enables UART control? Is setting it back to tri-state then just power minimization, or is it functional?
Thanks again.