It's commonly stated that the roots of a polynomial are a continuous function of the coefficients.  How is this statement formalized?  I would assume it's by restricting to polynomials of a fixed degree n (maybe monic? seems like that shouldn't matter), and considering the collection of roots as a a point in $F^n/\sim$ where F is the field and $\sim$ is permutation of coordinates, but is there something I'm missing?  More to the point, where would I find a proof?

At least, I've seen this stated for C (and hence R); is this even true in general -- say, for an algebraically closed valued field (and hence complete non-Archimedean field because those extend uniquely)?  I've seen it implied that it's not always true in the non-Archimedean case; is this correct?  What's a counterexample?  (If this is wrong and it is true in this generality, is it true in any greater generality?)

Here is a version of continuity of the roots.
Consider the monic complex polynomial $f(z)=z^n+c_1z^{n-1}+...+c_n\in \mathbb C[z]$ and factor it as $$f(z)=(z-a_1)...(z-a_n) \quad (a_k\in \mathbb C)$$ 
where the roots $a_k$ are arranged in some order, and of course needn't be distinct.
Then for every $\epsilon \gt 0$, there exists $\delta \gt 0$ such that every polynomial $ g(z) =z^n+d_1z^{n-1}+...+d_n\in \mathbb C[z]$ satisfying $|d_k-c_k|\lt \delta \quad (k=1,...,n)$ can be written 
$$g(z)=(z-b_1)...(z-b_n) \quad (b_k\in \mathbb C)$$
with $|b_k-a_k|\lt \epsilon \quad (k=1,...,n)$.

A more geometric version is to consider  the Viète map $v:\mathbb C^n \to \mathbb C^n $ sending, in the notation above,   $(a_1,...,a_n)$  to $(c_1,...,c_n)$ (identified with  $z^n+c_1z^{n-1}+...+c_n=(z-a_1)...(z-a_n)$             ).
It is a polynomial map (and so certainly continuous!) since $c_k=(-1)^{k} s_k(  a_1,...,a_n)$, where $s_k$ is the $k$-th symmetric polynomial in $n$ variables.
There is an obvious action of the symmetric group $S_n$ on $\mathbb C^n$ and the theorem of continuity of the roots states that the Viète map descends to a homeomorphism  $w: \mathbb C^n / S_n \to \mathbb C^n$. It is trivial (by the definition of quotient topology) that $w$ is a bijective continuous mapping, but continuity of the inverse is the difficult part.
The difficulty is concentrated at those points   $(c_1,...,c_n)$ corresponding to polynomials $z^n+c_1z^{n-1}+...+c_n$ having multiple roots.

This, and much more, is proved in Whitney's Complex Analytic Varieties (see App. V.4, pp. 363 ff). 

Algebraic geometry point of view Since you are interested in general algebraically closed fields $k$, here is an interpretation  for that case.
 The symmetric group $S_n$ acts on $\mathbb A_k^n$ and the problem is whether the quotient set $\mathbb A_k^n /S_n$ has a reasonable algebraic structure. The answer is yes and the Viète map again descends to an isomorphism of algebraic varieties $\mathbb A_k^n /S_n \stackrel {\sim }{\to} \mathbb A_k^n $.
This is the geometric interpretation of the fundamental theorem on symmetric polynomials.
The crucial point is that the symmetric polynomials are a finitely generated $k$-algebra.

Hilbert's 14th problem was whether more generally the invariants of a polynomial ring under the action of a linear group form a finitely generated algebra. Emmy Noether proved in 1926 that the answer is yes for a finite group (in any characteristic), as illustrated by $S_n$.
However  Nagata anounced  counterexamples (in all characteristics) to Hilbert's 14th problem at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1958 and published them in 1959.
