So to update based on my whining of yesterday: it appears that when I thought I was reinstalling lieningen, I updated it without realizing, so no, I had not been running 2.8.1. After fixing the https issue, it seems the lein-parent plugin does not work with 2.8.1 when specifying the project by coordinates. (It dies in places involving resolving that dependency). Reverting to 2.7.1 solved my problems.

cool