Thanks for the reply.
Interesting though - I just tried it with the 9.1 Simulator and it connected (without manually creating a LIF) - just ran node setup, Ctrl-C, then set the password.
You might want to verify all your network mappings (vmnic->virtual netowrk->ONTAP port e0?). I set all 4 of mine to "Host-Only" which is vmnet1. If I recall, the default uses NAT on a couple vmnics..
The first two vmnics (e0a and e0b) are for cluster interconnects and do not need host access.
Did you verify you could ping the IP address you assigned in node setup before creating the LIF?
Yes, I can ping the the node address and access with a browser. I do not know what the difference is between the LIF created by node setup or manual. I'll have to look deeper.
Also, there are a limited number of ZAPI commands that work before the cluster is created...I haven't checked this lately but seems to still be correct 
Allowed Precluster ZAPI calls:
- net-interface-create
- net-interface-modify
- net-interface-delete
- net-port-modify
- net-device-discovery-get-iter
- net-port-get-iter
- net-interface-get-iter
- storage-disk-get-iter
- aggr-spare-get-iter
- cf-status
- system-get-node-info-iter
- net-options-get
- net-options-modify
- net-cluster-ping
- security-login-modify-password
- system-node-discovery-get-iter
So if a PowerShell cmdlet uses any ZAPI calls not listed above BEFORE the cluster is created - you will get the "ZAPI is not enabled in pre-cluster mode" error.
This is good stuff. It looks like some additional setup may be required before I can create the cluster since New-NcCluster does not work. That's another question.