I never did manage to get USB 3.0 working at all after boot... so server was headless. Did manage to get it to boot and install using the VIB from this page.... http://shell.peach.ne.jp/aoyama/archives/2249
Used ESXi Customizer to create a new ISO and loaded it via IPMI.
Give it a shot and see how it goes. I ended up moving to Xen, since the board doesn't support VT-D and I needed PCI passthrough.