Thank you for posting your findings. I've been banging my head against the wall for days because I am trying to get a HopeRF RFM69HCW module to work with the 101 over SPI. I suspected the clock speed of the 101 was too fast for the HopeRF module, but couldn't back that up, and was having trouble sifting through the various libraries to reduce the SPI bus speed.
I don't have it working yet, but I feel like your post gets me a half step closer.