Problem Solved!
I noticed in some echolink setup pages online that 4 servers are used in the PC app, whereas ASL echolink.conf only has 3 defines and says “; Max 3 servers” above that. So as an experiment I tried using the same settings as shown for the PC app and it now works great. I was able to connect right away to the EchoLink Echotest server and everything works perfectly.
Updated server lines in echolink.conf FYI:
; Max 3 servers
server1 = nasouth.echolink.org
server2 = naeast.echolink.org
server3 = servers.echolink.org
server4 = backup.echolink.org
So looks like this is an issue in that the default echolink.conf file in the (latest from github, compiled from source) ASL 2.0 beta distribution is missing the server4 line.