So my results are pretty much as I expected. If I use a 6' or 15' CAT5 cable, I get 100% reliability. If I jump up to a much longer length (50'), the reliability suffers. With the longer cable and 2 sensors, I see that one of the sensors does not respond to initialization every time. If I reset the Wemos several times, I can eventually get both sensors live but that won't work for my production unit.
If anyone can help get SPI running to see if extended cable length works better, I'd be grateful. Thanks!