iCloud transition - Contacts take 2

Four months ago, when MobileMe was turned off, an attempt to move my OS X Lion Contacts to iCloud transition was a first class debacle. I still have PTSD from that disaster; it took several consultations over a week and some AppleScript intervention to undo the mess.

Since then I've maintained a test set of Contacts on iCloud while I sync my primary Contacts from iPhone to Desktop via iTunes. Now my primary machine is on Mountain Lion, iCloud presumably has fewer bugs, and my iPhone is on iOS 6.01. So I tried again, following this procedure:

1. Create a backup copy of my contacts on my main mac - prior to iCloud migration.
2. MacBook Air - remove all contacts. (Cloud empty)
3. MacBook - sync, confirm empty.
4. OS X: set up iCloud -- everything goes over.
1. 1833 cards on desktop
2. 1833 cards in web view of iCloud (a friggin miracle that they match) - thanks to Nigel Garvey's CR/LF cleanup script.  I did see an issue - the web view seemed to be hanging mid-way through the letter S. I edited the note for that contact, quit and tried again. Everything showed up. Don't know what that means.
5. iPhone -- need to clear out existing Contacts (was synchronizing via iTunes). Can't just turn on iCloud contacts because it will try to merge with iCloud. i'm sure that would be a disaster.
1. Turn on iPhone sync with my Google Contacts (usually that's off). iPhone offers to delete local. I accept.
2. Turn off Google Contact sync
3. Confirm no contacts left on phone
6. iPhone - turn on iCloud contacts
1. 1833 cards on iPhone (note that matches the above counts. Another flaming miracle.)
7. MacBook Air - turn on iCloud contacts
1. Yes, again, 1833. Whoopee.
8. MacBook running Lion …
1. Here I chickened out. I really don't use that machine much any more and I don't really need to replicate my Contacts there. Why take the risk of adding another OS in the mix, especially Lion? In fact, I plan to revert that machine back to Snowie with a fresh install. Then my house will be Snowie and ML - two decent versions of OS X.

So I'm back on iCloud again for Contacts, and I think a few bugs have been worked out.