FYI (and for future list-searchers), the problem with URIDNSBL appearing to work but not actually scoring was because the host's resolv.conf included 127.0.0.1, which apparently something doesn't like.
Peter Matulis just sent an unrelated email to the list mentioning this, and after checking it out and pointing hosts at each other instead of themselves, everything works fine. Ta-Da! Instantly my false-negative rate dropped. -- Matthew 'Shandower' Romanek IDS Analyst