Okay, so I just posted a thread about rockets firing in the VAB. And I didn't think that Collision FX could possibly be responsible considering it has little to do with engines specifically, but apparently it was.
So this whole thread was rendered pointless before it even got any replies. And now I'm not sure what to do with it.
I guess it can serve as help for people encountering this issue- I just removed Collision FX. I didn't notice that the thread title said 1.0.x rather than 1.1.x.
This was all on a new install, so I didn't think to check for updates- thought Collision FX was already up to date, or that it would work with 1.1.
A mod should probably delete this thread.