Well after four hours of futile searching I'm just going to ask here, and damn the torpedoes:
Does the default http interface page in VLC 2.1.1 work at all with IE 11? I have tried x86, x64, Win7, Win8.1, EPM on, EPM off, reregistering VLC DLLs, trying on localhost, trying on a remote laptop -- nothing works. The "Yes" button for streams does nothing, the library/playlist/etc. functionality brings up a blank grey box, and in Compatibility Mode the top rollover menu bar is stuck square in the middle of the interface and can't even be reliably tapped or clicked. If I test a file from my local NAS using the test page (http://git.videolan.org/?p=npapi-vlc.gi ... ml;hb=HEAD) it works fine, but that doesn't seem to translate to the actual built-in VLC lua http page.
This functionality all works (or at least attempts to do something, in the case of streaming over UNC path) in both Chrome and Firefox, on all platforms I tested.
Am I wasting my time with IE 11? Is this the world's best-hidden bug? Does anybody even care about the lua web interface any more? Inquiring minds want to know!