After a call to MSDN, I was finally able to get through this problem. We tried quite a number of things over a couple sessions, but the final solution was finally reached. From the command line I had to run:
devenv /resetskippkgs
We had run a couple of reset items similar to this, but this is the one that in the end seemed to work. The MSDN tech gave me a few other of these scripts and their intended outcomes that I give to you for your viewing pleasure:
devenv /resetsettings This command will erase all the setting if you have any custom settings for the project
devenv /resetskippkgs Clears all options to skip loading added to VSPackages by users wishing to avoid loading problem VSPackages, then starts Visual Studio.
devenv /setup Forces Visual Studio to merge the resource metadata that describes menus, toolbars, and command groups from all VSPackages available.
devenv /safemode opens visual studio in safemode
devenv /resetuserdata to reset Visual Studio
Hope this helps!