Ok, so I did the whole "Fix Black Eyes" dealio.
Followed all the instructions.

I'm on Fabric 1.201.
ETF is updated to 6.0.1 (latest) for this version.
I have Just Expressions v1.1
Expressive Fresh Moves 2.3
Fresh Animations 1.9

And the eyes remain black. Creep ... black. Staring into the depths of my soul.

The one thing that I notice is:

No matter what world, old, new ... the tool is unavailable.

Well, like an idiot ... I had two skin swappers still installed and they would battle out who was supreme. So my skin was never applied and was causing all sorts of issues. Removed one and magically fixed. Sorry!!

Note: Everything works with mobs. So now villagers can effectively look at me with disappointment when I log them in 1x1 cells and force them to trade everything they own with me for a useless green rock ...