i had a few things messed up... like one of my supposed output pins was set up as an input... and when i did finally get the LCD responding, all the characters were wrong... turns out that in the PIC i was using, the internal clock was off, so the USART was reading the serial data completely wrong... but then again that had nothing to do with the LCD.
just stick to the manual. check all your outputs, check your timing delay routines, etc... that's all that turned out to be wrong with my setup.
oh, and in case anyone's wondering, the HD66702 controller seems to use exactly the same setup procedure and commands as the MUCH more popular HD44780... i followed a guide for the HD44780, mostly because it was much easier to read than the manual for the controller that i have, due to it being written in very badly translated english... and everything worked out alright.