thanks for the help, but i think my internal sd is corrupted. deleting the .gmenu2x didnt work, the directory just shows back up after reboot.
the bootscript ends with "Error: unable to create gmenu2x home directory: 30".
GCWZeromanager says my rootfs SHA1 doesnt match, so probably time to reflash and maybe get a new internal sd.
for now i can press x+y to boot into the 2014 firmware which seems to be functioning well enough for now.