Yes, actually to answer my own post, I got NeoCal to work by (whodathunkit) using the GUI tools! Install to root with aqpkg, and invoke the GUI makecompat tool.
StageOne tends to lie down and die with a problem in the post-install script, which maybe looks for the mime-types file in the wrong place.
At the bottom of the line, apparently I can install apps reasonably well as long as I install to root. Fancy stuff like installing to the SD card drop into a black hole of missing symlinks or who knows what.
Windrose