jr2013cloudera wrote: finally, as a final comment about Tiny Core Linux, I was able to edit /etc/hosts and ping the multiple IPs; however, setting the hostname (in both /etc/sysconfig/network [hostname=namenode] and in /opt/bootsync.sh) would not keep the hostname in tact when I rebooted. And if I ran bootsync.sh after doing "sudo su", it *did* change the hostname, but then after I exited my current session, I was unable to open another terminal window or even hit the "power" icon to shutdown or reboot).
I didn't ask you to edit anything while using TinyCore and was very explicit and specific as to what I wanted you to do and why, which you have continued to demonstrate the inability the grasp it! Just to educate you a little... The reason for using a Linux Live OS distro like TinyCore is because it works without any special configuration changes and when using default NAT settings and using ifconfig to ascertain each VM's IP Address and then ping each respectively it is to validate that the default settings of both TinyCore itself and two NATed VMs can communicate showing that the VMware Virtual Network Infrastructure is working or not. No need to worry about Firewalls or anything out of the ordinary as it just works as is when the VMware Virtual Network Infrastructure is working! As I also previously said "... it's senseless to start a diagnostic/troubleshooting process unless one confirms the defaults work as intended!" and to add to that, especially when one is making copies of existing VM's, which can have issues that need to be resolved because of being copied, while also implementing other then basic network configurations! 
So in spite of the fact you couldn't follow simple directions it appears that from what else has been said that the VMware Virtual Network Infrastructure is working as expected and therefore I do not see your issue as a VMware issue per se, but an OS End User Configuration Issue that basically would be no different then if you took two or more physical machines and dropped the same OS image on each that was made on one of the physical machines.
CentOS 4.6 by default has its Firewall enabled and blocks ICMP (ping) requests.
CentOS 4.6 by default increment the Network Adapter as the MAC Address changes so eth0 is no longer a valid adapter on the copied VM unless one edits the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persisyent-net.rules file to properly reflect the existence of a single network adapter that should show as eth0 not eth1 when only a single adapter is present.
Additionally there is the potential to have issues when using DHCP as while one VM may have the last octet being .128 today nonetheless over time and depending on which order the VM are started that IP Address could change and if one is going to implement customized network configurations like you're attempting you should use static IP Address and ones that are outside the Scope of the DHCP Servers IP Address Pool. For a VMware NAT Network that's .3 to .127 on the last octet of the Subnet IP Address.