oliv3r:
From the posts above I'm guessing this is expected, as now I need the 12 MHz crystal on pins 2/3 iirc (with caps) to even talk to the attiny? Is this correct? If just for testing purposes I quickly solder only the crystal to those pins, would it communicate again as well? (The board I made has the caps and crystal already on it but quickly hooking up a crystal is easy, adding the caps is trickier.
You only need the crystal if you programmed the fuses to expect a crystal as well. In this case, it will probably work without the capacitors. Alternatively, if you have an Arduino then write a sketch to toggle an output pin continuously, and feed that to pin 2 of the ATtiny.