I was going to ask for help here, but before posting I decided to try one last experiment to see if it would work. Yesterday I tried making a simple one button panel inside Configurator and exporting it to Photoshop CS6. I put it in the plugins\panels directory. Start Photoshop, nothing... I tried looking at how to create an extension manually and signing it in order to install it with Extension Manager, and my brain nearly melted.
So today I tried installing an older version of Photoshop (CS 5.5). The difference was that I selected Photoshop CS5/CS5.5 in the create new panel dialog in Configurator instead of CS6. Export Panel..It worked! Then I tried the same thing for my install of Photoshop CS6, selecting Photoshop CS5/CS5.5 as before in Configurator's dropdown menu. Success! 
I hope this helps anyone who was stuck in the same place as me.
