shutdown -p now doesn't power off VMWare ESX 2.x VMs

[Tom Pepper]

I realize this is probably a VMware issue, but was wondering if  
anyone here has experience getting -stable to be happy on ESX 2.1.   
I've managed to get 8 VMs humming along and their agent software  
(incl. memory manager) functioning in 5.4, but am having difficulty  
getting a shutdown command from the ESX console to instantiate a  
shutdown in the FBSD VMs.  Likewise, issuing a shutdown -p now makes  
it all the way past halt but the host doesn't apparently interpret  
the power down signal.  Ideas?

Thanks much,
-t