Hello Josh, thanks for taking the time to reply and help sorting things out; it proves that you really are committed and try to improve things, much appreciated!
I think i'm fine for now (the files i uploaded through FTP all came through eventually), but you can see how needing a manual to upload isnt exactly user-friendly...

A few humble tips for improving the user-friendliness of the form:
*ditch that whole first page and take us to that 2nd page at once and give us the option to add releases and submit from there.
...just skip the silly steps of having to select it again from a dropdown after uploading (its a form to upload max 1 pic anyway!), having to add a title there (most have it in their IPTC info anyway!), and create the item submission... just take us to that 2nd page at once. The FPT version does this already
* For the first batch to become an author; add the info releases should be included in the zip, i was waiting for a 2nd field or page to add them but instead it went pending for review already
*I have a double in my 'images ready to submit' section, but i cant find a way to delete it... is there a way?

Hello again Artemis!  Your humble tips were right on the money.  We are actually working on all of those I believe   As to the issue of double images, I don't believe there is a fix for that as of yet.  You can however hit up support if you would like and they can help you out.  Worse case i suppose is they both go into your portfolio where you can then choose to remove it.

Thanks again for your time and fine suggestions.