Help - being overrun by bad MIFs!

Question

I just installed SCCM 2012 SP1 fresh start last week... I've very new to it, but think I understand parts of it pretty well.  Today, I'm getting a lot of errors with my SMS_Inventory_Data_Loader.  The errors are 2703:
Inventory Data Loader failed to process the delta MIF file "XHE1YOX2T.MIF" and has moved it to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Configuration Manager\inboxes\auth\dataldr.box\BADMIFS\DeltaMismatch\krpsti7w.MIF."
Possible cause: The file attempted to update inventory information in the site database that does not already exist, or the file contains invalid syntax.
Solution: The client inventory needs to be resynchronized, which will be done automatically. Look for the status messages 2714 and 2715, which indicate the resynchronization has begun.
We have roughly 800-900 PCs, and so far today, over 200 have reported this error.  The error is shortly followed by a 2722 informative log post:
Inventory Data Loader has requested a resynchronization for machine <COMPUTER_NAME>. Inventory Data Loader requests resynchronization when it receives an Update or Delete request for a nonexistent group.
At first the computer names were completely random and hard to pinpoint what they had in common - some are XP, some are win7, etc. - Then I found the correlation - they were all last scanned on 4/30 - so today is the 7 day cycle update.  So why is this
error occurring?  I'm guessing I will get this error on every single computer since it is slowly crawling upwards in bad MIFs so far.  MIF files are all very tiny - less than 1MB for most - definitely not reaching the 5MB limit.  I opened the
MIF file in a txt editor and it has some garbage characters in first line of the MIF file.
An example of the garbage characters is:
   FV   ,   1.0                        FV  FV  à   0   FV 
FV  à   System   FV  FV  ð:   GUID:E98267DF-28F1-4367-BD2D-B20AA9953D1B   FV  FV  ð+   NetBIOS Name
GV-RPALMER-LT   FV  FV  à$   SMS Inventory Agent   FV  FV  ð   1   FV  FV ð½! //AgentID<SMS Inventory Agent>
So what is this process, why is it a problem now, what can I do to resolve it, and what can I do to prevent it from happening next week?  (THANKS!)

Answer 1

When will the client receive policies and perform a full inventory cycle?  I've gone to a client, went to control panel, config manager, actions, hardware inventory cycle and ID MIF collection cycle -  both performed, error still occurs. 
The clients should pick up policies every hour or so, no?  I'm a bit concerned as all the research I've seen ends up having to reinstall the client... that's a lot of computers to work on. 
I have found a few systems that are successful updating their hardware scans - so I'm guessing the server side of things is working properly...