Yep, I tried that the second time, and that’s when I found the audio from “Host-01” attached to EVERY “Host” clip!
Wow, was I surprised.
I re-rendered to yet another drive, this time simply using “01”, “02” etc. instead of “Host-01″…. and it worked this time. It seems somewhat presumptuous of Premiere to delete all of the audio files associated with my original footage, without even asking me… alas.