First I would suggest writing these in a normal text editor and reading the shader in instead of how you have it. That is pretty ghetto.

Yes, I was going to be getting to that eventually. This is still  just a test app / for learning.

Second:
v_Color[0] = a_Color[0] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[1] = a_Color[1] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[2] = a_Color[2] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[3] = a_Color[3];
  
v_Color = a_Color*diffuse; //write this instead!

But I don't want the alpha channel attenuated.  If I did it that way I'd be able to see through the meshes.

Third, If you are passing in the sun vector, is it changing? Try:
vec3 nSunVector = normalize(vec3(1,1,1));

The sun vector changes very slowly over time but at the moment I'm just passing in constants for testing so it isn't that...

My problem is, I'm lighting the surfaces in world space before doing the rotations and transforming them, I know what I'm doing wrong, I just can't figure out how to do it right...

First I would suggest writing these in a normal text editor and reading the shader in instead of how you have it. That is pretty ghetto.

Yes, I was going to be getting to that eventually. This is still  just a test app / for learning.

Second:
v_Color[0] = a_Color[0] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[1] = a_Color[1] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[2] = a_Color[2] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[3] = a_Color[3];
  
v_Color = a_Color*diffuse; //write this instead!

But I don't want the alpha channel attenuated.  If I did it that way I'd be able to see through the meshes.

Third, If you are passing in the sun vector, is it changing? Try:
vec3 nSunVector = normalize(vec3(1,1,1));

The sun vector changes very slowly over time but at the moment I'm just passing in constants for testing so it isn't that...

First I would suggest writing these in a normal text editor and reading the shader in instead of how you have it. That is pretty ghetto.

Yes, I was going to be getting to that eventually.

Second:
v_Color[0] = a_Color[0] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[1] = a_Color[1] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[2] = a_Color[2] * diffuse;  \n"
+ "   v_Color[3] = a_Color[3];
  
v_Color = a_Color*diffuse; //write this instead!

But I don't want the alpha channel attenuated.  If I did it that way I'd be able to see through the meshes.

Third, If you are passing in the sun vector, is it changing? Try:
vec3 nSunVector = normalize(vec3(1,1,1));

The sun vector changes very slowly over time but at the moment I'm just passing in constants for testing so it isn't that...