Well I GUESS I'm a Noob. Turns out the hat on my T.16000 is flaky. I use it for pips. Down is 2 pips to each, and that's what I trigger when I enter a CZ, then adjust as necessary. I rarely (if ever) actually look at the pips on the display (thus being a Noob). It works sometimes. Not always. I checked it out at the AX CZ today specifically in response to a couple comments above.
I took the Thrustmaster apart, cleaned and reassembled, and now it's working all the time. At least that problem is solved.
I must say though, that Turreted weapons (all of them?) require you set the weapons to "Target Only" or they don't fire? That should be the default for all Turreted weapons. I don't use Turreted on my builds unless it's absolutely necessary, so I was unaware of the restriction. I was also unaware of the distance required to fire. It does make sense though, to avoid wasting ammo on a target too far away.
Nevertheless, I still had a very crappy time last night because of this.
Thanks to the helpful Commanders! Salt Tossers and negative comments can go ram themselves into a station, as they were absolutely no help at all, as usual.