First, something for others:
At long last, I’ve got things working. Had issues with hardware (loose USB power socket that caused issues with a couple of my boards).
Also - found that you really MUST install the meshtastic app on your PC/Mac. Several things I read or YT videos seen alluded that you just need to get the Android/iOS app and you’re good to go. WRONG. I had very flakey connections between boards in the mesh the entire time I tried that. Could take 5-10 minutes for them to connect between two boards sitting on my desk 6 feet apart.
Installed meshtastic, and updated to the latest beta firmware, and then built a script to set all boards to have the “same” or compatible settings. Now, when they power up, the boards connect within 3-5 seconds. Each and every time. That could have been due to the firmware, but I don’t think so.
Now I’m able to play with some of the software AP wifi settings, etc.