Ok, been a while, but here is and update on what I found. cdazua is correct: "You can manage an ESX 4.1 host with vCenter 5, but not an ESXi 4.1. That's the problem" The simple solution is to downgrade your Host license to 4 then add the new key to your current ESXi 4.1 hosts. This (in my environment at least) did not require the hosts to restart. I was then able to add the hosts to my vCenter Server. They can now be managed. Unfortunately (unrelated I know...sigh) I lose connectivity to my hosts shortly after they are added. Interestingly enough, I can still see configurations but the hosts show not responding and is showing the individual VMs as disconnected. All VMs still work just fine though. Just another hiccup along the windy path that is VMware -_-.
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