Time Machine backup - doesn't store masters? Help!

My Aperture library was exhibiting problems, and so I attempted to restore it from a Time Machine backup (presuming (it would seem incorrectly) that restoring the Aperture Library.aplibrary would bring everything back to how it was two weeks prior. That was my experience with iPhoto. I hit restore and then because there were two .aplibrary files, 'replace' and let it go.

However, now it seems all I have left are the preview images, no thumbnails nor the much larger masters. The masters were stored within the library (the default setting).

I've done a lot of searching, and read that Time Machine stores incremental backups for Aperture - so is there a way to collate all those incremental backups to get a full Aperture library restore? Someone mentioned a 'slow backup restore' but I can't find anything on this. The original library file was several gigabytes, but each of these restored library files is only around 200mb.

Any help would be extremely appreciated - would love to get the masters back. If Time Machine has only stored a database and not the masters contained within the library, then how can Apple call it a backup solution? Surely one of the most important things for it to back up IS someones photos!