Sorry for leaving you guys hanging on this, I've been distracted with the holiday and a million other things going on.
To answer some of the questions, all fuses related to the instrument cluster are fine. As far as I can tell all the indicator lights in the instrument cluster work fine, dimmer switch works fine, steering wheel/radio/climate control etc. all dim correctly. The courtesy lights, mirror lights, everything else on the vehicle seems to be working fine. Still no instrument cluster illumination. I thought I had found the right bulbs to replace the burned out ones in the cluster today but found out that the bulbs I bought locally weren't the right ones. I have checked fuses ad nauseum, there are no bent or pushed in pins in the 2 connectors on the cluster... I'm completely stumped right now.
I think I have a total of 4 bad bulbs out of 11 in the cluster, but no moving them around or switching where the burned out ones are gets the cluster to light up.