I thought I would share this on the tech support forum since they are usually only filled with problem reports and not a whole lot of feedback when things start working for (some) people.
I guess your timing fixings corrected whatever issues I've been having playing. I can now get in and play multipayer games!
The bad news is, since I've been relegated to playing AI all this time, I now SUCK HARDCORE at playing real people. 
Thanks for continuing to iron all this out! I feel for the folks that still can't play online. Hang in there. It's worth the wait.