Hmm. I didn't know about that location and will have to do some reading.
A quick look through there doesn't reveal very much. The contents of the

/proc/asound/oss/sndstat

file reveals that some things are not enabled in config. Of those, only
"Audio Devices" seems relevant to my problem, or?:

Sound Driver:3.8.1a-980706 (ALSA v1.0.18rc3 emulation code)                    
Kernel: Linux 127.0.0.1 2.6.28 #1 Thu Oct 21 16:21:31 PDT 2010 armv5tel        
Config options: 0                                                              
                                                                               
Installed drivers:                                                             
Type 10: ALSA emulation                                                        
                                                                               
Card config:                                                                   
--- no soundcards ---                                                          
                                                                               
Audio devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG                                           
                                                                               
Synth devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG                                           
                                                                               
Midi devices: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG                                            
                                                                               
Timers:                                                                        
7: system timer                                                                
                                                                               
Mixers: NOT ENABLED IN CONFIG