PulseAudio Bluetooth Sink + Game Console = Frozen Pi

[MasterC]

I'm able to configure my Pi 2 to accept Bluetooth Audio from my phone and it plays out through HDMI. Works like a champ. If I boot up and never connect a device to the Pi, and launch a game (happens with any game on any emulator including ports such as Kodi) it works. But if I boot up, connect something via Bluetooth, and then attempt to launch a game, emulationstation freezes. If I check ps, I can see that emulationstation is running and has launched the script to start the selected ROM, but it is "frozen" at the screen where you choose your game, but it's really dark, like it's fading but hasn't completely switched video over to the emulator.

I'm running RetroPie 4.0.2 and started this project from stock (and had the problem, so I apt-get updated and apt-get upgraded) and am on whatever Raspbian has in their repos as of yesterday.

Things I've tried:

1. Setting up Pulse to stream all audio as a single mix. It actually works as long as I wait until the game is started before I connect my phone. But once I exit and launch a new game, the freeze occurs.

2. Removing Pulse. This worked (no freezing), but I lost my ability to stream audio over Bluetooth since apparently BlueZ removed Alsa support.

Any other ideas? Even just things to stab at in the dark, I'm feeling like I'm going down different paths but keep hitting the same brick wall.

Thanks!
-Chad