After getting the Portlet drag and drop working, or so I thought, it looks like I am going to have to abandon that approach. It turns out the drag and drop works just find – it does what it is supposed to. However, getting the new arrangement information so it can be sent back to the server as an Ajax post does not. I am unable to get any sort of serialization to work and even the Portlet example indicates it is obsolete and references jQuery UI.
I have subsequently found a jQuery based Table Drag-and-Drop solution which looks like it will do what I want. I am now in the process of implementing this in hopes that it will be a little easier to work with. Stay tuned …