How to troubleshoot NIS binding problems on OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion?
Since NIS is a third party product - you should be able to follow any of the great troubleshooting guides on the internet and make headway to determine if this is a client or server issue.

My gold standard for a NIS guide is from IBM:


Troubleshooting NIS-Related Problems


From what you have posted in the question edits - it appears that ypwhich would be the next item to check to ensure the client OS is configured properly. If not, the network troubleshooting or a manual ypset may be needed. If to, you could use ypcat to see that the command line can call some of the maps you care to configure on the client side (hosts for example).