Not sure whether VMware re-reads the .vmx file in entirety so I closed the tab and reopened it after making the above mod.
Ran the folder copy again. Iinitially I thought maybe it was better, because it started out fast, but it ran into a wall at about 10% complete, then was showing numbers as small as 0 bytes/s.
Probably just random happenstance that it looked a little different. Next time I tried it the symptoms were the same as in all prior tests.
-Noel