Got a note that I was mentioned in your message, so here I am. 
Apple's Disk Utility typically fills in the first MBR entry as a protective GPT partition (type EE) spanning the whole disk, which is standard GPT behavior. However, if any of the first 3 partitions is created as MS-DOS (FAT), the protective GPT entry is smaller, and the other 3 MBR entries are filled in with the first 3 partitions (HFS+ and FAT). This essentially creates the Hybrid MBR, and is the reason why Fusion is sometimes able to detect a Windows installation, even if Boot Camp Assistant was not used to perform the partitioning.
The other mentioned issue is if a user deletes and re-creates the Apple-created FAT partition (instead of just re-formatting as NTFS) while installing Windows. The new partition is created at a different location, but only the MBR is updated, while the GPT is left with an old entry (at least this is the case with the non-EFI Windows install). As a result, Mac OS does not recognize the NTFS partition and does not make it available as a block device, so Fusion is unable to use it either. But that's not the issue in this post...
resonanttoe - how is your disk partitioned? Here are two commands that can list both the GPT and MBR partition tables: (substitute appropriate disk number if necessary)
sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0
sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
The easiest way to get Fusion to recognize the Windows partition would be to convert to a hybrid MBR (essentially update the MBR to show one or more of the Windows partitions, while leaving the GPT as it is). This is possible with tools such as GPT fdisk: http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html
However, as with all partitioning utilities, you have to be very careful (and make backups!) to avoid accidentally losing data or making partitions inaccessible.
If your Windows installation was on an entirely separate disk, you could create a VMDK file referencing the whole disk device. Then it wouldn't matter how the disk is partitioned. However, if your Mac partition is on the same disk, this won't work.