Thanks. Ok, so the post install script failed to change the group of uinput. That's probably because it didn't have sufficient privileges.

Unfortunately, that's not the biggest problem. I worked through this with a tester on irc and came to the awful realization that fremantle doesn't include the joydev kernel module. I assumed it would be in there because of people attaching gamepads via USB to previous NITs, but apparently as near as i can tell it has always been missing.

So, unless i'm missing something, this is going to take a rather involved work-around, or new, hackish approach.