Thanks for your suggestion. The issue is that applying the 'Crop to Aspect Ratio' needs to be followed by either a 5:4 or 4:5 setting. Most of the time the clip on the track will take, sometimes it won't. When it failed to take the setting, I had to remove the clip, apply the effect to the clip THEN add to the track. Now it works.
Of note, VP appears to depend a lot on the rendering engine; Windows kept alerting me that it was blocking VP from accessing it, which contributed to my issue. Thanks again!