Seems like the issue might have been caused by the fact that I had to wipe and re-install the entire drive, as mentioned in D4, but no solution is offered. I've been kind of afraid to turn it back on since it seems it will have to wipe out my remaining older backups, which I may need, just to do one day's backup. The article doesn't seem clear to me... is it claiming it should just do one full (enormous) backup, and from then on backups should be the the expected size again? Or that this will cause it to start doing full backups every time?
I actually want one complete backup so I have a system backup. From then on I want to exclude things like the system folder, applications, and other huge items that don't change much. Even if the subsequent backups are smaller, how do I keep it from deleting my full backup to make room for the others? It seems like they're still enormous enough to wipe out the entire drive in a single day, and I'd lose my system backup.