I believe so. After I uninstalled I deleted the entire Electronic Arts folder from the My Documents folder, so that was all re-created first time I ran the game after re-installing. (It's backed up in a folder on my desktop, but I've made sure to keep it totally separate from the game folders in My Documents/Program Files) However, it doesn't appear to have changed anything aside from the obvious removal of save files & whatnot
Edit: I updated the game to version 1.9 on impulse and am running the test version of Awesomemod, and CAS is loading again, even after I re-added my mods folder & whatnot. Still don't know what caused the whole thing in the first place, but it's working now so I suppose it doesn't really matter much anymore.
And thanks for the help, Skadi. I really appreciate the assistance, and not getting poked at with sticks for my failure