Just as a follow up to my own comment, I spoke with my client and he feels that if a sale is made in a store or over the phone, the affiliate shouldn't need to get the attribution because of admin costs.

If it's absolutely necessary to make sure the hit and commission record is being generated, then they can always just follow the link from said affiliate's web site to complete an order.

Now I just need to figure out the best way for a regular user/customer on the site to become an Affiliate (via role upgrading). I'm sure I'll find some kind of a recipe on drupal.org for assigning roles based on node (bio or profile node) creation or something.

Cheers to Ubercart and its wonderful community of contributors.