PLEASE HELP -- iTunes Match - multiple problems, desktop and iOS

Question

I've been going round and around with this issue for the past couple days (yes, I've been dedicating that much time to it) and finally went to the Genius Bar today to get help and even they were stumped.  Hoping someone here can shed some light on the situation. Next stop, express lane for support.
Broad Problem:
I paid for iTunes Match around 6 months ago and activated it on my desktop.     Since then, I've had nothing but problems across my desktop and 4 seperate iOS devices (3 iPhone 4's, and an iPad 3).  The basic sympton on the desktop is that iTunes itself frequently freezes (Option-Command-Esc reveals "Application Not Responding") and requires a force quit.   As soon as I turn OFF iTunes Match, this symptom goes away. I can leave iTunes open for hours without any problems.  As soon as I turn it back ON, then the problem comes back -- sometimes iTunes won't launch at all (crashes before bringing the UI up), and other times it's the same freeze that requires a force-quite.  Quite frustrating.
On the iOS side of things, the situation isn't any better.   When I toggle on iTunes Match and then enable "Show All Music" in the Preferences of the iPhone, then I get any one of the two following scenarios:
A) The Music App simply won't load.  It tries, goes to white, and crashes back to the home screen of my iPhone.
B) If I'm lucky, the Music app will launch and I can see my entire library in the cloud as intended.  The problems start though when I go to actually download/play songs from the cloud.  Typically, the songs will start playing but I will eventually get an error message that alerts me that there was "Problem Downloading Track".  When I then go into the Download Que of the iTunes Store (again, still on the iPhone), it shows the entire list of songs that I had wanted to download and shows them at various stages of download completion -- even if they have actually completely played on the phone itself.   Sometimes they will time out and display the "problem downloading track/try again" status, and other times the progress bar sits at about 99% with a status of "Processing". 
What's particularly strange about scenario B is that I've tried to download a variety of songs to different devices -- my wifes iPhone 4, my iPhone 4, an iPad, and a iPhone 4S that the person at the Genius Bar had me use as a tester.   When I tried the iPhone 4S at the genius bar, I was amazed at how fast it downloaded to the device.  This had the genius bar guy wondering if it was a problem with my phone itself or with the iPhone 4 in particular.   Unfortunately he didn't have a spare iPhone 4 to test with so I had to go home and test with my wife's iPhone 4.  Again, she had the same problem.   The status bar hangs at about 99% showing a status of "processing", even though I have completely listened to the track within the Music App.  The same scenario happens on the iPad as well.
Okay, if you're with me so far:  here's where things start to get REALLY strange....
On MY iPhone 4, when I run into problem A or B, the only fixable solution for me has been to go into Preferences and toggle OFF iTunes Match, completely shut down the phone, restart the phone, and then launch the Music App, at which point I can see the music that has loaded to my phone.    The kicker here is that even though I've turned iTunes Match OFF and completely powered down my phone, when I go into the Music app I can ALSO see my ENTIRE iTunes Match library, completely with cloud status icons.   It's as though I never turned off iTunes Match at all.  In fact, I had to triple check my own preferences to verify that it was turned OFF, which it sure enough is.   I can even go and attempt to download songs, with various levels of success based on the problems above.
Now, on my WIFE's iPhone 4, when I run into problem A or B, I tried the same process in tandem with the phones side by side as I did the test -- turn iTunes Match OFF in Preferences, power down the phone, power up the phone, and launch the Music app.    However, on her phone, when this happens the Music App shows what is to be expected -- only the music that is on the phone itself.
Okay, there's a lot to digest here, but here's the synopsis:  my phone and my wifes phones are behaving differently when displaying iTunes Match, with my phone appearing to completely disregard the status of the On/Off Toggle within Preferences-->Music, and my wifes phone behaving as it should, at least in terms of what it displays.   The download problems are present on each device and the iPad is also behaving like my wifes phone.
Given all of these inconsistencies and irregularities across devices and platforms -- MacBook Pro running Lion, separate iPhone 4's each running iOS 5.1.1, an iPad running iOS 5.1.1. and an iPhone 4S running iOS 5.1.1 - my suspicion is that:
A) I've got a corrupt iTunes library file residing in the cloud
or
B) iTunes Match is having a hard time reconciling my Apple ID across so many devices (possibly complicated by issue A)
The bottom line is that I have paid for iTunes Match and have never been able to use it successfully or with any predictability.
I'm wondering if anyone else has any symptoms that match any of this and/or have come across a corrupted file in the cloud and, if so, how to remedy the situation.  Since it's in the cloud, I can't do anything about.  I can't even see it.  Most troubling.
Note:
When I went to the Genius Bar, they had me do a complete restore of the phone (not from backup) to elminate any corrupt files within the phone itself.  Even that didn't solve the problem.   That's when he brought out the 4S phone to test on and we were both so shocked at how blazingly fast the songs downloaded, error-free.  That phone was able to download 8 songs completely before one song downloaded to my phone sitting right next to it.  Both on the same Apple Store network and both downloading the exact same tracks using my Apple ID and login.   While it's tempting to say that the 4S is faster than the 4, I don't think it's 8 times faster with download speeds over WiFi.   However, even if the speed/completion discrepancy is because the 4S is superior, it doesn't explain the mind-boggling disparity between my wife's phone and my phone -- both iPhone 4's and both running the same iOS.   Throw in the oddity of iTunes on Lion crashing whenever iTunes Match is on and this all seems to point to some corruption in the cloud that perhaps the 4S device is able to bypass...for whatever reason.
Please help.  This is nuts.

Answer 1

Exactly same problem - any ideas - I get error message 14