Form Collection/Identity Issues

Ok so i have been bouncing around forms for almost 2 months now. Here is the issue i am having - our company has a slew of interactive PDF's both distributed and none distributed, and all of them worked perfectly fine on Acro 8.0 (reader, std & pro). However, 4 months ago we upgraded to Acro 9.0 and disaster struck. None of the old forms will collect responses any longer in 9.0, or even recognize that they are distributed forms.

Here is what i have tried -

1.) opening (or rebuilding) existing forms and re-distributing in both 9.2 std and pro, this method will allow for reader users to be enabled and for them to submit, but none of the standard or pro users can submit. They receive this message in place of the prompt for email and name - Microsoft Office Outlook does not recognize "1. Double Click the attachment." (which is obviously the body copy of the email) it will give you a choose option to select from the directory but once you select through it throws a scripting error

2.) opening (or rebuilding) existing forms and re-distributing in LiveCycle 8.2, this method error's on the distribute forms button - "Acrobat Professional is not responding and may need your attention before competing form distribution".

None of the users in standard 9 or pro 9 have the document message bar showing up either, which i found odd because its only on the PC, the Mac has the Document Message bar in Pro, Std and Reader. I proceeded to see if the commenting toolbar would show up as well and doesnt either. If i go to Preference>Forms> "always hide document message bar" - its grayed out and wont let me select or deselct it.

Another thing i found odd was that when i go through the distribute form wizard i dont have Adobe.com as a choice to distribute, its only email or internal server?

I found the following thread from back in september which sounds familiar to what i am experiencing, i shut off PDF/A and that didnt do anything.
http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?pid=54917

I am stumped, our IT people are stumped, and i am have lots of 8.0 PDF's that are going to require edits soon. its amazing how Adobe can something working perfectly fine in one version and the create a disaster out of it in the following version. Any help would be greatly appreciated.