So I'm at the limit of my modest capabilities for troubleshooting this further. There is a workaround I am thinking of by which the documented 3-way conferencing feature of att-xfer could be simulated using a full-on conference bridge and if this is the end of any suggestions I receive on this thread I will pursue it. I have implemented att-xfer in a manner nearly identical to the online documentation and default config as is practical and within my understanding. I have documented here my configuration and corresponding logs in hope that someone else had encountered a similar problem and could advise me of a solution. Hopefully my experience does not indicate a larger issue within the att-xfer module, but if it does I hope the following documentation is useful.
<action application="bind_meta_app" data="1 b s execute_extension::ax XML callsdirect"/><extension name="bind_receiver"><condition field="destination_number" expression="^ax$"><action application="answer"/><action application="read" data="10 10 'tone_stream://%(10000,0,350,440)' attxfer_callthis 30000 *"/><action application="execute_extension" data="attended_xfer XML callsdirect"/></condition></extension><extension name="attended_xfer"><condition field="destination_number" expression="^attended_xfer$"/><condition field="${attxfer_callthis}" expression="^(\d+)$"><action application="set" data="continue_on_fail=true"/><action application="set" data="origination_cancel_key=#"/><action application="att_xfer" data="sofia/gateway/onesource/${attxfer_callthis}"/><anti-action application="eval" data="cancel transfer"/></condition></extension>