[eluser]Michael;[/eluser]
Okay, now that I am done kicking myself, over, and over, and over, and over... This issue has been fixed.
Turns out, if the $this->input->post('value') had no value I was skipping my validation routines entirely. I've been starring at this thing so much I just glossed over that line 1000 times or so in the last 2 days.
Thank you for the help, but that line was off in and ajax controller and I stopped looking at it yesterday.
*sighs*