Aside from the "^[" problem, it works fine once booted.
So, another tech emailed me to press "F11" instead of DEL like the Quick Start Guide says, and that allowed me to get into the UEFI BIOS.
You might want to update the quick start guide.
Now I'm having issues with the onboard mmcblk0 device, but I'm trying to work that out on my own first.