Hello Bryan,
I don't know if I missed it on your instructions but I found that I had to edit a line in the sshd_config file on the server machine, I needed to change the X11Forwarding line from no to yes in /etc/ssh/sshd_config (on a debian system):

... (snip)
X11Forwarding no
... (snip)

change it to:

... (snip)
X11Forwarding yes
... (snip)

save the file and then restart ssh on your server.
(in debian: /etc/init.d/ssh restart)

The other thing I noticed is that .xsession is used for the window manager / desktop environment selection so I had to change that file in the users home directory so it started the proper wm /de.

Thanks,

rock