It's been a while, but I figured I should post back here to report our findings:
It was a long journey trying every method we could think of, but in the end, the FBX support with the rigging just doesn't work that well at least in the version listed in the original post. Breaking the geometry connection to its bones and parenting them to said bones just causes the rendered components to jitter uncontrollably.
The Octane plugin for Maya will need to be purchased to complete this scene, which will be more useful in the long run, but is still another expense which I'm just a bit unhappy about.
Thank you for the help.