Chris, thank you for the detailed update and workaround. In case anyone doesn't know how to locate the library in question, on my CentOS 6.3 system, the file was in 2 locations, one for x86 and one for x64. Presumably you only need to rename the one that matches the architecture of your guest, but renaming both shouldn't hurt.
/usr/lib/vmware-tools/plugins32/vmsvc/libtimeSync.so
/usr/lib/vmware-tools/plugins64/vmsvc/libtimeSync.so