@CDNSailor ok, so after getting home and opening my Pi up, I tried plugging the controller directly to the system. Lit up and was picked up immediately. Still can set it up, but I did run a jstest. It's definitely my splitter that is causing the issue with the pi seeing the controller. That said, now I'm going to fiddle with the drivers and see if I can get that one to work. Of that works, I'll be half way there. I just wish I could know exactly what the splitter is doing that is choking it off. If it's power or data throughput.

@baconbandage Run the following command - with the gamepad plugged in - and post the output

cat /proc/bus/input/devices

Try testing the gamepad with the jstest utility. Exit EmulationStation and run

jstest /dev/input/js0

You should get a listing with the gamepad's input types (buttons/joysticks/etc.) and you can press the buttons/D-Pad/move joysticks to see if they are registering. You can exit the test by pressing Ctrl+C.