WoodyZ nailed it! Thank you...
Just in case this helps others, I was not aware of the machine.vmx file. Further adding to my confusion, was using finder to view the files that were there. With machine.vmwarevm appearing in finder as a non-descript flat file (and being perplex about where the .vmdk file disappeared to), I assumed .vmx in the reference was a type used for ESX or another VMware product. Now that I know, I know!
It is also interesting that the find command (IE find / -name "*.vmx" - print) reports the contents of .vmwarevm "directories".
(It's always the smallest points that derail us.)