SOLVED
0.1uF (or a 0.22) works, I haven't tried a 1.0uF yet; the issue was the latest version of the drivers for this chip/board. I removed them and performed a manual install of the ftdibus.inf and ftdiport.inf files contained in the previous version of the CDM drivers (2.08.30). Now I can upload sketches with a soft reset, read sensors, and hot-swap FTDI boards without issue, each presenting a unique COM port number.
Thanks