SOLVED!!!
It did turn out to be a programming issue. Everything appeared to program well with version 3.10 of the software, but that appears to be the issue. When I tried to install version 1 of the Pickit3 software from out website, everytime I tried to 'check communication' it would throw an error. In order to resolve this, I installed MPLAB, and updated the firmware on the Pickit3 from there, then connected back to Pickit3 V1, manually selected the chip, installed the DMX firmware (showing checksum 0000) and we appear to be golden (at least the indicator lights are blinking!!!!)