Thanks for your reply Nalates. To answer some of your questions:
I'm using Blender 2.70, but I'm not sure where to find the version of Avastar I have -
I'm using Firestorm version 4.7.5.47975, 64bit on Mac OS. I made the head originally in Zbrush and use Blender to rig and weight.
At first, I did get an error message when I tried to export the dae. file, I don't precisely remember what it said, but it was about having unweighted vertices on my mesh so blender aborted the action. Afterwards, I tried again, and did not get the same error and was able to export, so I'm a bit confused. For the weights I tried two methods, copy from the avastar, and transfer the weights from an already rigged head. Both gave me the same result.
I test the head without any animations playing, just the default and the head moves in slight turns to the right and left, like a click, almost following the movement of the eyes??
And yes, i've heard of project bento, :matte-motes-agape: