OK, so I took the whole damn thing apart, and started over again (using the same components though, except for the .1uf cap and the circuit board).
Apparently my soldering skills have actually degraded since the first time I put this together, so now it looks even more like crap than before.

Now when I do the resistance test on the pot (with it at its max adjustment), the max ohms I get is around 783. And when I test between the mid leg on the VR and ground I get about 420.
So at least its different. Still not right, but at least different.

I think next I'm going to swap out some of the components, and if that fails, Im just going to order this stupid thing pre-made.