So, I managed to contact Apple Support, first by chat, then phone; and the simple answer is "yes, I'm screwed". All Notes gone forever. And, the "30 days to restore deleted notes" only applies to individual notes that you've deleted manually and then realized that you needed. When I thought I was deleting all notes from my phone, I deleted all notes from iCloud. No restoration possible!
The great thing about iCloud is that it gives all your Apple devices access to the same (latest) data. The fundamental flaw is that there is no local storage, so even Time Machine on Macs is NOT backing up your Notes, Calendars, Contacts, etc. when you choose to use the iCloud option. You can create your own archives for contacts and calendars pretty easily to local files, but if you read Apple's archiving info for Notes, you are told to export each note separately as a PDF file. Try that with 5000 notes! Then try importing all those PDFs back into Notes.
Going forward, I'm pretty sure I'll be abandoning Apple Notes for another notes solution that provides more flexibility and backup options. There are lots of them out there. Any recommendations?
