There's definitely something wrong with the binaries.
I git cloned dmaxl cgminer and compiled it myself on minera and it now picks up gaw/zeusminers instantly and without the 7 minute wait for it to start.
Also recompiled bfgminer from the luke-jr tree so it was 4.4 and not 4.3.
Also, michaelm, you need to update the udev rules for cgminer and bfgminer, they don't match the ones available from the bfgminer source tree or cgminer (dmaxls), I copied over new ones myself from git, things are running much nicer!
Suggestion, the api check failing due to not connecting that makes it restart the miner, check more then once before restarting the miner (3 times) for sanity checking.
Would love if I could get this section on its own Page for mobile.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vanoy3u7rkj6698/2014-07-19%2023.47.10.png