OK... I've talked this over with scrawl and there is a bug in saving skills when editing a content file in OpenMW-CS. There is a workaround that involves creating an omwaddon, which we use to add the missing globals and we are on our way in OpenMW with AoA.
OK... deleted everything but the AoA ESM.
Used openmw-cs to 'create a new addon' using the AoA esm, I verify it to see the problems and add all the missing globals. I save it out, use the openmw-launcher to select the AoA esm and omwaddon, and it works! No errors... fuck ton of warnings, but that is for another post.
I delete everything, and try again... this time in openmw-cs to 'edit a content file', verify the AoA esm file. I add the missing globals, save it out as omwgame. In the launcher, instead of the AoA esm, I select the omwgame... and then I get the error from the previous PM (and in the forums).
Bug is filed here:
http://bugs.openmw.org/issues/2402
Even though we have a workaround, there are still some bugs/warnings/etc to work through, but at least it loads. This is a great first step. We should coordinate efforts in trying to get AoA TC off the ground! I'll make a list of things of things that need to be taken care of tomorrow, but if anyone can throw up some ideas or would rather take the lead, please do so!