One last update to try and save others from the same pain. Short answer: upgrading to WS 16 appears to NOT have broken bridging.
Found the root cause the hard way: needed to repair corrupt Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable (or reinstall with new, I assume). This is a new Win10 box with very little on it, so not sure how they would have gotten that way (Windows updates or VMware WS?), but here is the detail version:
With WS 15.5.1 installed (correcting version from last post), received snapshot permission and other permission errors when trying to start my VM's that had been copied to my new box. Allowed full permissions recursively to all folders: no change. Updated to 15.5.7: no change.
When runing WS as Administrator, received an error for "Missing VCRUNTIME140.dll". After a quick search, ran repair on both Visual C++ instances (x86, x64), rebooted and boom - permissions errors stopped. Now able to boot my VM with all operating normally, I was then able to get my out-of-band (OOB) WiFi NIC set up and active for my VM's.
Thanks for reading.
