I'll try this, but I'm not optimistic. My vmwarevm folder is littered with all sorts of vmk files, each (I take it) representing sectors of the dynamically resizing virtual disk and then the sequential snapshots of each sector. So I have not only "windows.vmdk" but "windows-000001.vmdk" through "windows-000006.vmdk", and each of those, in turn, has (currently) 46 snapshots, e.g. "windows-000001-s001.vmdk" through "windows-000001-s049.vmdk".

When I was porting this VM over from VMWare Fusion, I tried discarding the sXXX.vmdk files and the VM wouldn't start at all. Is there a procedure anyone knows of to somehow consolidate snapshots?

Create a full clone (VM->Clone...). A full clone creates a copy of the VM (including all disk files, but with no snapshots) in a different directory. Once the full clone is created, you no longer need the original files (though you should keep a backup).