How to use number fields for drupal commerce attributes
For the answer, I actually found a possible dup of my questions here:

support integer or float values as an attribute

but it was never answered, which is why I left mine up.  However, the question had a little more research into my problem and was able to give me insight that any field that implements hook_options_list and has an entity "property_type" defined in its hook_field_info then it can be used as an attribute.  

From here I created a module that installs a new widget for the "list" modules that allows textfield input and adds the sanitized value of the textfield to the "allowed_values" on POST so that it passes validation.  From the viewmode standpoint it works like a normal list and you can use the select widget on the commerce product attribute settings to use this as an attribute.

I know the security ramifications of this could be dicey, however I am sanitizing the field input and I have only myself actually contributing content so I feel this solution works for me.